I'm going to start with two news articles giving an overview of execution dates. Both are excellent recaps of where we stand, today. Next will be individual posts from Georgia and Missouri.
"3 inmates set to die; previous execution botched," is Jim Salter's AP filing, via the Cape Code Times. Here's the beginning:
There have been no U.S. executions in the seven weeks since an Oklahoma inmate died of a heart attack following a botched lethal injection. That soon could change, with three convicted killers scheduled to die in the span of about 24 hours.
All three states planning lethal injections this week — Florida, Georgia and Missouri — refuse to say where they get their drugs, or if they are tested. Lawyers for the condemned inmates have challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal injection drugs from unnamed, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.
Nine executions nationwide have been stayed or postponed since late April, when Clayton Lockett's vein collapsed just as the drug began flowing into his arm in Oklahoma's death chamber. Lockett's punishment was halted, but despite efforts to save him, he died of a heart attack.
"I think after Clayton Lockett's execution everyone is going to be watching very closely," Fordham University School of Law professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert, said of this week's executions. "The scrutiny is going to be even closer."
Marcus Wellons is set to die Tuesday night in Georgia, followed six hours later by John Winfield, who faces execution at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday in Missouri. John Ruthell Henry's execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday in Florida.
The Guardian posts, "Death row inmates face execution in three states amid drug controversy," is by Ed Pilkington.
The sudden flurry of execution activity following a recent lull means that both advocates of the death penalty and opponents will be on high alert this week. Any missteps on a level with the grim scenes in Oklahoma could have significant ramifications for the death sentence in America.
“If anything even close to Oklahoma happens again, the death penalty itself could be at issue,” Dieter said.
Georgia has a particularly troubled record in terms of its procurement of lethal drugs to execute prisoners. When supplies of its previous drug of choice, sodium thiopental, ran out as a result of a European-lead boycott of US death penalty states, Georgia began importing the drug from unlawfully from a fly-by-night pharmaceutical wholesaler, Dream Pharma, that operated out of a driving school in Acton, west London.
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