"Okla. pharmacy won't give drug for Mo. execution," is the AP report by Tim Talley and Justin Juozapavicius. It's also available from ABC News.
An Oklahoma pharmacy will not provide a drug for a scheduled execution next week in Missouri as part of a settlement with the death row inmate's attorneys. But it's unclear whether the agreement will prevent or delay the lethal injection.
A court hearing is scheduled Tuesday in the federal lawsuit filed by inmate Michael Taylor against The Apothecary Shoppe, a compounding pharmacy in Tulsa that his attorneys said was providing a drug that could cause "inhumane pain" during his Feb. 26 execution.
In court documents filed late Monday, his lawyers asked a judge to dismiss the case because the company had agreed not to prepare or provide any drug for use in Taylor's lethal injection. The pharmacy also acknowledged it had not already provided any drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for the execution, said Taylor's attorney, Matt Hellman.
However, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon indicated last week that the state could move forward with the execution even after the judge issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the company from providing the drug. He did not directly say "yes" or "no" when asked if Missouri had enough drugs for the execution, but he twice stressed that the Department of Corrections was prepared.
A slightly different version of the report is posted at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
According to the documents, the Apothecary Shoppe, of Tulsa, will not prepare or provide pentobarbital or any other drug for use in Michael Taylor’s execution. The documents ask a judge to dismiss the case that Taylor’s lawyers had filed against the pharmacy seeking to stop it from providing the execution drug. A hearing is scheduled for today.
Taylor’s attorney, Matt Hellman, said that as part of the deal, the pharmacy acknowledged it has not already provided any such drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for the execution, which is scheduled for Feb. 26.
St. Louis Public Radio posts, "Oklahoma Pharmacy Agrees Not To Sell Execution Drug To Missouri," by Chris McDaniel.
Last week, a federal judge ordered the pharmacy to hold off on selling the drug to Missouri until further review. Before that could take place, however, the pharmacy and the inmate came to an agreement.
"The Apothecary Shoppe has agreed that it will not prepare or provide pentobarbital or any other drug for use in the execution of Michael Taylor," Carrie Apfel, Taylor's attorney, said in a written statement. She also said the pharmacy had not sold any drugs to the Department of Corrections for this execution yet.
The Apothecary Shoppe could not be reached for comment.
We reported in December that Missouri had been obtaining its execution drug from a compounding pharmacy not licensed to sell here. The Apothecary Shoppe sold the state compounded pentobarbital for three executions, but it only recently became licensed with the Missouri Board of Pharmacy. A Corrections official had been taking thousands of dollars in cash to the Tulsa pharmacy.
"Oklahoma pharmacy capitulates, won't supply Missouri with execution drug," is by Steve Vockrodt for the Pitch of Kansas City.
On the eve of a court hearing in Oklahoma, on whether to prolong an injunction against the pharmacy from supplying Missouri with pentobarbital, the Apothecary Shoppe reached a deal with Michael Taylor's attorneys to not make the drug for his upcoming execution. Taylor's attorneys succeeded last week in getting a temporary restraining order against the pharmacy's supply chain to the Missouri Department of Corrections while federal courts sorted out the issues surrounding Missouri's death-penalty protocol.
Missouri has made headlines around the country in recent months for its cat-and-mouse execution methods. The state either changes the drugs it uses or cloaks its drug supplier under a broad interpretation of state law that keeps members of its execution team secret. The Apothecary Shoppe did its business with Missouri in secret until The Pitch identified the compounding pharmacy in Tulsa as the likely supplier in January.
At issue is whether Missouri properly obtains its drug and whether it can definitively vouch for the efficacy of that drug. But Missouri's insistence on secrecy as well as troubling revelations about how it gets the drug have cast doubt on the state's promises that it's doing its executions appropriately.
"Missouri execution: pharmacy will not supply compounded pentobarbital," is at the Guardian.
The Apothecary Shoppe has not acknowledged that it supplies a compounded version of pentobarbital to Missouri for use in lethal injections, as Taylor says, and says it can’t because of a Missouri law requiring the identities of those on the state’s execution team to be kept confidential.
In his lawsuit Taylor alleged that Missouri turned to the Apothecary Shoppe to supply compounded pentobarbital because the only licensed manufacturer of the drug refuses to provide it for lethal injections. That company, Illinois-based Akorn Inc, agreed to that condition when it bought the exclusive rights to the drug in January 2012 from a Danish company that had produced it under the trade name Nembutal.
Taylor contends that several recent executions in which compounded pentobarbital was used showed it would likely cause him “severe, unnecessary, lingering and ultimately inhumane pain”.
Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.
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