Public radio station KRCU-FM posts, "Mo. Moving Forward With Executions, Despite Secrecy Over Drug Supply ," by Chris McDaniel and Véronique LaCapra. There is audio at the link. Here's the beginning of this must-read reporting:
On Oct. 11, Gov. Jay Nixon told the Department of Corrections to make a change. He wanted them to come up with a new drug to carry out executions.The drug they’d originally planned to use is a popular medical anesthetic, and using it in an execution could have triggered a shortage in US hospitals.
What’s more, the state obtained the drug from a company that wasn’t authorized to sell it.
“I looked at this from two perspectives: number one was public safety, obviously, and the second was public health," Nixon said, when asked why he asked for the change. "On the public safety side, making sure that we continue to move forward with executions when folks have committed incredibly serious offenses like this, I think is an important public policy matter that I continue to support.”
A week after Nixon asked for a new execution drug, the Department of Corrections came up with one: a drug called pentobarbital. Pentobarbital is a sedative and it's used by veterinarians to euthanized animals.
But the Department of Corrections didn’t stop with just changing the drug -- they also made another important alteration. They changed the rules to hide the identity of the drug supplier.
It used to be that just the names of the people actually carrying out the execution were confidential. Now the so-called “execution team” includes “Individuals who prescribe, compound, prepare, or otherwise supply the chemicals for use in the lethal injection procedure.”
There is also Missouri coverage from earlier this week. "Flynt wants to block execution of his attacker," is by Associated Press, via the Columbus Dispatch.
Larry Flynt wants to stop Missouri from executing the man whose bullet put the publisher of Hustler magazine in a wheelchair for life. Over the weekend, Flynt and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to force the state to release documents on how the state determines the process by which it kills prisoners.
Joseph Paul Franklin, 63, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 20.
"Porn publisher Larry Flynt wants man who shot him spared from lethal injection," is by Tony Rizzo for the Kansas City Star.
Flynt is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Franklin and other death row inmates challenging Missouri’s lethal injection protocol, including the secrecy that surrounds it.
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union are representing Franklin. In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, they argued on his behalf that Missourians have a right to know details about the state’s execution plans.
“I find it totally absurd that a government that forbids killing is allowed to use that same crime as punishment,” Flynt said in a statement released Monday by the ACLU. “But, until the death penalty is abolished, the public has a right to know the details about how the state plans to execute people on its behalf.”
Flynt has been on record as saying that he didn’t want to see Franklin executed but instead believes he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
The shooting outside a Georgia courthouse while Flynt was on trial for obscenity left Flynt with permanent spinal damage and confined him to a wheelchair. Though he confessed, Franklin has not been prosecuted for the crime.
"Publisher Larry Flynt enters Missouri capital punishment fray," is by Jeremy Kohler in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
His motion notes that while the Missouri Department of Corrections says its doctor is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology, that organization’s rules say a member “should not participate in an execution.”
Flynt writes that the doctor is therefore “either lying about being board certified, or lacks the professional standing required to maintain certification.”
No representative of the corrections department could be reached for comment Monday.
In 2005, a federal judge temporarily halted the state’s use of the death penalty, after the surgeon in charge testified that he was dyslexic, sometimes confused numbers and did not follow written procedures. A Post-Dispatch investigation revealed that the doctor also had faced disciplinary issues and multiple malpractice lawsuits, and made false statements in court.
The Legislature reacted by making it unlawful to reveal the identities of the execution team. The ACLU is challenging that law in federal court.
"Hustler's Larry Flynt seeks to save his assailant from lethal injection," by Michael Muskal in the Los Angeles Times.
Larry Flynt wants to stop Missouri from executing the man whose bullet put the publisher of Hustler magazine in a wheelchair for life. Over the weekend, Flynt and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to force the state to release documents on how the state determines the process by which it kills prisoners.
And:
Flynt has become increasingly more vocal about saving Franklin from death. In columns in The Hollywood Reporter last month, Flynt said he objected to the execution and also challenged the methodology of execution and the lack of transparency.
On Saturday, he and the ACLU went to court, seeking documents from the state.
“I find it totally absurd that a government that forbids killing is allowed to use that same crime as punishment,” Flynt said in a written statement. “But, until the death penalty is abolished, the public has a right to know the details about how the state plans to execute people on its behalf.”
“There has been far too much secrecy clouding the state’s execution plans already, which makes it difficult to trust that the state is acting on our behalf in an ethical manner,” said Jeffrey A. Mittman, the executive director of the state’s ACLU chapter.
The parties are focusing on a state deposition that includes statements from a board-certified anesthesiologist identified as M3. They question the lack of identification and how M3 could be certified.
“The state claims that its executions satisfy Eighth Amendment standards because their execution team includes a board-certified anesthesiologist,” Tony Rothert, the legal director of the state chapter said in a prepared statement.
“However, the American Board of Anesthesiology forbids its members from participating in capital punishment. If M3 is certified, it is only because the state is abetting him in hiding his identify from the board. The public should be skeptical of his testimony, but because his testimony is sealed, we do not even know what he said,” Rothert stated.
Earlier coverage of Missouri lethal injection issues begins at the link. You can also jump to Larry Flynt's essay on the matter.
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