Ohio obtains hundreds of vials of lethal drugs

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s1600/Midazolam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s400/Midazolam.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has obtained hundreds of vials of lethal injection drugs, allowing it to put a condemned child killer to death next month and conduct multiple executions after it, records show.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Inventory logs obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request show the state received supplies three times in September and October for the first drug used in the process, a sedative called midazolam that’s been at the center of several lawsuits over lethal injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The records show the state obtained supplies twice in September and October for the second drug used in the process and three times in September for the third drug.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state has said the drugs it plans to use on the first three executions this year are standard drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration, though it won’t say where they came from. Attorneys for death row inmates have raised concerns the state may have to resort to drugs from compounding pharmacies, which produce specialty batches and aren’t subject to the same type of federal regulation as FDA-approved drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorneys have been unable to identify the suppliers or producers because of the 2015 law and because recent federal court rulings bar them from obtaining the information through usual evidence channels.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The logs show the state could conceivably carry out dozens of executions with these supplies. What’s unclear is the drugs’ expiration dates — information not provided on the logs — which could control whether they’re available for future executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Ohio prisons agency, declined to comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state plans to execute Ronald Phillips on Feb. 15 for the 1993 rape and murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in Akron. Seven other executions are also scheduled this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The logs obtained by the AP show:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">— The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction received 750 vials of midazolam on Sept. 9; 750 vials again on Oct. 3; and 100 vials on Oct. 27. That could be enough for as many as 40 executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">— The state received 150 vials of rocuronium bromide, a paralytic drug and the second drug administered, on Sept. 9; and 80 vials of the drug on Sept. 30. Ten of those vials would be enough for one execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">— The state received 12 vials of potassium chloride, a drug that stops the heart and the last drug administered, on Sept. 9; 12 vials on Sept. 23; and 150 vials on Sept. 30. That could be enough for dozens of executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ohio and other states have struggled to find legal supplies of execution drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Drugmakers have by and large put their drugs off-limits for executions. Last year, Pfizer put seven drugs off-limits, including the three drugs to be used by Ohio. But drugs like midazolam are widespread, found everywhere from dental offices to veterinary clinics, making it difficult to trace the origin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Executions have been on hold in Ohio since January 2014, when Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted during the 26 minutes it took him to die, the longest execution since the state resumed putting prisoners to death in 1999.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state used a two-drug method with McGuire, starting with midazolam, its first use for executions in the country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorneys challenging Ohio’s new three-drug method say midazolam is unlikely to relieve an inmate’s pain. The drug, which is meant to sedate inmates, was also used in a problematic 2014 execution in Arizona. But last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of midazolam in a case out of Oklahoma.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state says the method is similar to Ohio’s past execution process, which survived court challenges. State attorneys also say the Supreme Court ruling last year makes clear that the use of midazolam is allowable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A trial challenging the state’s execution method was wrapping up Monday in federal court in Dayton. Testifying for the state last week, a member of the execution team that put McGuire to death said he was puzzled by McGuire’s reaction and “was wondering what was going on.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another execution team member testified he didn’t believe McGuire suffered.</div><br />Source: The Associated Press, January 9, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Ohio obtains hundreds of vials of lethal drugs

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has obtained hundreds of vials of lethal injection drugs, allowing it to put a condemned child killer to death next mo...

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Missouri Execution Drug Purchases Revealed

<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcmc65p-rakhwiBVT5OV_nMf65_XnW3TUicF5_snfVKMiQGaIIUDHttYXQ6px4Fs0EBfbqU2_GYgsa-Mfs3xdHGI0BMp79FPGYhm1BybDvMvIRUsJW1ScdnyfgnHXO9kCoDhrkSLxY1F8/s1600/The+apothecary+shoppe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Apothecary Shoppe " border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcmc65p-rakhwiBVT5OV_nMf65_XnW3TUicF5_snfVKMiQGaIIUDHttYXQ6px4Fs0EBfbqU2_GYgsa-Mfs3xdHGI0BMp79FPGYhm1BybDvMvIRUsJW1ScdnyfgnHXO9kCoDhrkSLxY1F8/s400/The+apothecary+shoppe.jpg" title="The Apothecary Shoppe " width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Death row inmates spent years fighting over Missouri's use of compounded pentobarbital. A sealed court filing obtained by BuzzFeed News says they may have been fighting the wrong thing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Missouri purchased manufactured drugs for use in recent executions that were made by a company that enacted stringent measures to prevent any state from doing so, BuzzFeed News has learned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A sealed court document obtained by BuzzFeed News shows that the state had, at least sometimes in the past 6 years, bought manufactured pentobarbital - as opposed to the compounded version of the drug inmates spent years fighting over in court - for use in its executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For years, Missouri death row inmates have waged a legal battle with the state over the use of compounded pentobarbital. Manufactured drugs are subject to Food and Drug Administration regulation, while compounded drugs - which have a significantly higher failure rate - are regulated largely by the states.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But a discussion between Attorney General Chris Koster's office and a federal judge in a sealed courtroom indicates that the state previously purchased a manufactured version of the drug. The sole FDA-approved manufacturer of the drug Missouri uses, pentobarbital, is Akorn. Akorn has stringent measures in place in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of executioners, making companies that wish to sell their drug sign an agreement that it will not go to death penalty states. Despite those efforts, it appears the state has been able to obtain some anyway.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Akorn did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The revelation comes months after Mississippi death row inmates attempted to subpoena records from the Missouri Department of Corrections, in an effort to discover a better method of execution than used in Mississippi. Missouri successfully quashed the subpoena after the supplier said it would no longer sell the drugs if its identity were revealed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a July court hearing, lawyers with Attorney General Koster's office argued that even acknowledging they had documents on some of the requests in the subpoena would reveal too much information about its supplier.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I'm going to order a sealed proceeding and banish anyone from the courtroom who is not a party or counsel," Judge Stephen Bough said. "And order confidential restrictions not to discuss or file with the clients or in any other way the information that's discussed in this proceeding, subject to contempt order."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the court was cleared, an attorney with the Attorney General's office laid out his concerns with revealing whether the state had the documents.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I'm primarily focused on request number 2 for documents about pentobarbital," Assistant Attorney General Greg Goodwin said, according to an excerpt in a later court filing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If [we] identified whether or not there is a responsive document to that request, that answers the question of whether it is or is not manufactured or compounded pentobarbital because manufactured pentobarbital has that information, and compounded pentobarbital does not have a package insert."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"So by merely saying that there exists a document that proves it's manufactured or proves that it's compounded, that answers the question does Missouri use compounded or manufactured pentobarbital," Goodwin said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The judge then stated that there were 3 responsive documents to that request, according to the court filing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court filing was marked that it should be sealed, but for some reason was available on the federal courts' website, PACER. Shortly after BuzzFeed News approached an attorney representing the execution drug supplier, the filing became sealed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The now-sealed court filing does not identify the supplier of the drug. When Missouri first began using pentobarbital in Nov. 2013, the state bought the drug from an out-of-state compounding pharmacy called the Apothecary Shoppe. The pharmacy was not licensed to sell in Missouri, which under normal circumstances could be a felony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After its identity was revealed, a death row inmate sued the pharmacy in early 2014. The pharmacy settled out of court, agreeing to no longer sell execution drugs. BuzzFeed News later revealed that the pharmacy had admitted to committing more than 1,000 pharmaceutical violations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the Apothecary Shoppe dropped out, Missouri discovered a new supplier that it has referred to only by the pseudonym "M7," and has attempted to keep all information about the supplier secret.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under M7, the state has mysteriously built up a considerable stockpile of execution drugs, something that does not fit with using compounded drugs. Compounded drugs have a shelf-life measured in weeks, while manufactured drugs can last for years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Using pentobarbital from the Apothecary Shoppe and M7, Missouri has executed 19 death row inmates. The leadership that oversaw those executions - Gov. Jay Nixon, Attorney General Chris Koster, and Director of Department of Corrections George Lombardi - are on their way out.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nixon was term-limited out, Koster lost his bid to replace him as governor, and both leave office on Monday. Additionally, Lombardi announced his resignation after accusations that his employees retaliated against women who alleged they were sexually harassed by superiors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 3 offices did not return a request for comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Missouri is scheduled to carry out another execution at the end of the month.</div><br />Source: BuzzFeedNews, January 9, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Missouri Execution Drug Purchases Revealed

Death row inmates spent years fighting over Missouri's use of compounded pentobarbital. A sealed court filing obtained by BuzzFeed News ...

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Virginia: Decision on delaying Ricky Gray's Jan. 18 execution to come no later than next week

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s1600/Midazolam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Midazolam" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSkkpFCGqjmIPN4lj4W02kAS1qMbe05Z8CooL7Z1mVBrEpBR78cXBUsHkXQ7aDpHQPvJ893H4uep8vgv3XP_9lIs6Z8pIRiEm0B33Io2r8Nq4PE6f0SEIh_k_HGt0HT6LxcUYVL4M2Yi0/s400/Midazolam.jpg" title="Midazolam" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A federal judge on Tuesday said he will decide within a week whether to delay Ricky Javon Gray's scheduled Jan. 18 execution over concerns about drugs the state intends to use if Gray dies by injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midazolam" target="_blank">Midazolam</a>, a sedative, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart, are the 1st and 3rd drugs used in Virginia's 3-drug procedure. The drugs were made by a compounding pharmacy and not by pharmaceutical manufacturers, which no longer provide drugs to states for executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state strongly disputes that the compounded drugs - tested by a state laboratory and made by a licensed Virginia pharmacy and pharmacist - are anything less than suitable for use in an execution. The alleged problems are "wholly speculative," said Margaret Hoehl O'Shea with the state Attorney General's Office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under state law, Gray must choose execution by injection or electrocution by 15 days prior to the execution date. If he refuses to select a method, state law makes lethal injection the default method.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Virginia Department of Corrections did not immediately respond Tuesday when asked if Gray had made a choice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gray's lawyers also contend death in the state's electric chair is cruel and unusual punishment. And they claim the use of compounded drugs have contributed to botched executions elsewhere and unnecessarily increase the risk of "chemical torture."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They are asking U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson - who heard more than 4 hours of testimony and argument Tuesday - to delay the execution so they can better make their case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An expert testified for Gray on Tuesday that execution by firing squad presents less risk of cruel and unusual punishment than Virginia's proposed injection procedure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gray was sentenced to die for the New Year's Day 2006 slayings of sisters Ruby Harvey, 4, and Stella Harvey, 9. He also killed their parents, Bryan Harvey, 49, and Kathryn Harvey, 39, in their South Richmond home, which was set on fire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Less than a week later, Gray and accomplice Ray Dandridge, 39, killed Ashley Baskerville, 21, who had been a lookout when Gray killed the Harveys; Baskerville's mother, Mary Tucker, 47; and stepfather, Percyell Tucker, 55, in their Richmond home.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">O'Shea, in her closing argument, told the judge that what Gray did was a nightmare for the community, the Harvey family and the 2 little girls.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lisa Fried, 1 of Gray's lawyers, asked the judge not to call off the execution, but to delay it so Gray's concerns can be fully aired.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In response to a question from Hudson, Fried conceded the Constitution does not require a pain-free execution. But she said that while the public has an interest in seeing that sentences are carried out, everyone in the state has an interest in making sure executions are carried out constitutionally.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An expert, pharmacist Larry Sasich, testified that the testing performed by the state on the compounded drugs - to identify them and ascertain their potency - was inadequate. They should also been tested for sterility, acidity, and to see if there are any particulates in the solutions, which are injected into the inmate via an intravenous line.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked by Fried how likely it was that the use of a compounded drug would lead to pain and suffering, Sasich said, "It is more likely compared to the use of an FDA-approved product."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, a state expert pharmacist, Daniel Buffington, said the compounding of such drugs by pharmacies is common in the industry. "It's done routinely," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Buffington said he was not aware of any botched execution caused by midazolam. He said the problems that he was aware of were caused by the drug's administration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Jonathan Groner testified there was less risk of pain in an execution by firing squad, which would be almost instantaneous if done properly, than in one using midazolam. Virginia has not used the firing squad, although Utah has twice since the death penalty was allowed to resume in 1976.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A Department of Corrections official testified that no employees were trained to conduct a firing squad, there was no facility in which to do so, and the General Assembly would have to change the law to permit that form of execution. He conceded under cross-examination that prison employees are trained in the use of firearms.</div><br />Source: The Roanoke Times, January 3, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Virginia: Decision on delaying Ricky Gray's Jan. 18 execution to come no later than next week

A federal judge on Tuesday said he will decide within a week whether to delay Ricky Javon Gray's scheduled Jan. 18 execution over concer...

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Texas AG sues FDA for delaying import of death penalty drug

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eBEUDKn7jC_gbbXo4_1WVg-feZQna8nMihXzUd6ApqMrnVtuVwhDgs1GEqLupZAzz-f2PAzwWXHZWSmPY3hr_5ROcx0AaAdz2xpTv7jOId8pWSM7eMKmQNYKmzMwqJS3Z3pt9Psq8Qk/s1600/FDA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eBEUDKn7jC_gbbXo4_1WVg-feZQna8nMihXzUd6ApqMrnVtuVwhDgs1GEqLupZAzz-f2PAzwWXHZWSmPY3hr_5ROcx0AaAdz2xpTv7jOId8pWSM7eMKmQNYKmzMwqJS3Z3pt9Psq8Qk/s400/FDA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AUSTIN (KXAN) — Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday his office has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for delaying the state’s importation of a drug used in capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lawsuit argues the FDA’s claimed legal grounds for refusing the drugs’ entry into the United States are invalid, citing an FDA exemption for law enforcement purposes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thiopental sodium, also known as Sodium thiopental, is part of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In its December newsletter, the Council of State Governments said, while Texas has 317 inmates on death row, it only has enough of a key lethal injection drug to execute two of them, stemming from a nationwide shortage of the drug.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Attorney General’s Office is asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to declare the FDA’s delay unlawful and compel the agency to make a final decision on the admissibility of the drug, which was detained by the FDA 17 months ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“There are only two reasons why the FDA would take 17 months to make a final decision on Texas’ importation of thiopental sodium: gross incompetence or willful obstruction,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The FDA has an obligation to fulfill its responsibilities faithfully and in a timely manner. My office will not allow the FDA to sit on its hands and thereby impair Texas’ responsibility to carry out its law enforcement duties.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In April 2016, the FDA <a href="http://kxan.com/2016/04/21/texas-under-fire-for-importing-lethal-injection-drugs/" target="_blank">blocked an appeal to bring in Sodium thiopental</a> from India. Experts in the FDA said there is not a legal use for the drug in the U.S.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Texas Department of Criminal Justice previously used the drug as part of a three-drug cocktail for executions. Since 2012, Texas has used a large dose of a single powerful sedative to carry out executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The maker of the drug made it off limits to sell to the government for execution purposes. Texas has been using compounding pharmacies to make the drugs needed for executions..</div><br />Source: <a href="http://kxan.com/2017/01/03/paxton-sues-fda-for-delaying-import-of-death-penalty-drug/" target="_blank">KXAN</a>, Andy Jechow, January 3, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Texas AG sues FDA for delaying import of death penalty drug

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday his office has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (...

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Nebraska's new lethal injection protocol comes under fire at hearing

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboAh7AyYtbRPVvbXaDmc-WnCwX_uJuo18WaTN95Hc7fwK9LMLJ5yUHZrwBc2JsQumh9lutWD3cQpSL9KecMq5O3s8nOscIJcd9-u51aRZwKR9br9A5FPYJ2YIvHGPfXwJ-hDv0_uaX38/s1600/Nebraska+the+good+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nebraska, the good life" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboAh7AyYtbRPVvbXaDmc-WnCwX_uJuo18WaTN95Hc7fwK9LMLJ5yUHZrwBc2JsQumh9lutWD3cQpSL9KecMq5O3s8nOscIJcd9-u51aRZwKR9br9A5FPYJ2YIvHGPfXwJ-hDv0_uaX38/s400/Nebraska+the+good+life.jpg" title="Nebraska, the good life" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Opponents of the death penalty predicted Friday that a new lethal injection protocol being sought by Gov. Pete Ricketts will mire the state in more lawsuits rather than revive capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This is only going to trigger more litigation that the state will not win," said Spike Eickholt of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska. Eickholt was among 20 people who testified during a public hearing Friday concerning a new execution protocol drawn up by the Ricketts administration to make it easier to obtain the necessary drugs for an execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All but 2 of those testifying criticized the proposal. It was lambasted as violating Nebraska's public meeting laws, allowing unlicensed "pharmaceutical chemists" to participate and permitting the purchase of drugs from secret and shady sources.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It looks to me that a (Corrections Department) director could buy drugs in a back alley," said Dr. Gregg Wright of Lincoln, a former state health director.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friday's hearing was the 1st step in reviving Nebraska's stalled death penalty. The state hasn't carried out an execution in 19 years, and it has not been able to obtain the necessary drugs to carry out a lethal injection execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2 people testified in support of the new lethal injection protocol, and both were leaders in the campaign that overturned at the ballot box in November the 2015 repeal of capital punishment by the Nebraska Legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 supporter, Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt, who gathered hundreds of signatures for the successful referendum drive, said that voters last month delivered a "work order" to state leaders.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"They are instructing our leaders to find a workable way to carry out a death sentence," Eberhardt said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ricketts, in a statement after the hearing, called Friday's session "1 step toward enacting the will of the people of Nebraska on the death penalty."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He added that his administration would review comments from the hearing before finalizing the proposed regulation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new protocol would give the state corrections director wide latitude to choose the type and source of drugs being used, and to keep that information confidential.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The secrecy provisions brought objections from a variety of groups and individuals, including Media of Nebraska, the ACLU, the state's Tea Party and Nebraska's most ardent opponent of the death penalty, State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Anything that the government does on behalf of the people should be done in plain sight," Chambers said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He vowed to introduce another bill to repeal the death penalty when the State Legislature begins its 2017 session next week, and promised it would be better drafted than the "slapdash, loosey-goosey" proposal for the new lethal injection protocol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nebraska's current protocol was adopted in 2009 after the state switched from the electric chair to lethal injection. It calls for the use of 3 drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the state has been thwarted in its attempt to obtain them, contributing to the Legislature's vote in 2015 to repeal the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shawn Renner of Media of Nebraska, which represents the state's major newspapers and broadcasters, said the new protocol was directly contrary to the state's public records laws by allowing the state corrections director to pick and choose what records will be released and which ones will be withheld.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Renner called the proposal "illegal" and predicted it would be overturned in court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Others said that the lack of transparency could lead to the use of impure and suspect drugs, which could result in botched executions or courts tossing out lethal injection as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been 47 botched executions since 1982, according to a study by University of Colorado professor Michael Radelet, and 35 of those involved lethal injection.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than one testifier pointed out that an open process was needed, given Nebraska's track record in obtaining lethal injection drugs. In 2015 the state lost $54,000 when it purchased 2 lethal injection drugs from a broker in India, then was blocked from importing the drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Joni Cover of the Nebraska Pharmacists Association said that while the association was not taking a position supporting or opposing capital punishment, it was opposing the new protocol as having multiple flaws.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She asked that a requirement to have a "pharmaceutical chemist' as part of the execution team be stricken. Such chemists are unlicensed and lack the education or legal authority to prepare, compound or administer drugs, Cover said. In addition, the state corrections director lacks the authority to write a medical order for lethal injection drugs, she said, and the secrecy surrounding the drugs could put Nebraska in violation of state and federal laws about how such drugs should be handled.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">10 inmates sit on Nebraska's death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It may take several weeks before state corrections officials decide if the proposed protocol should be approved or revised.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The attorney general must also review and OK the rules, and the governor must sign them, before they take effect.</div><br />Source: The Smithville Herald, December 31, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

Nebraska's new lethal injection protocol comes under fire at hearing

Opponents of the death penalty predicted Friday that a new lethal injection protocol being sought by Gov. Pete Ricketts will mire the state ...

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No refills: Last remaining Arkansas death penalty drugs expire soon

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7b04hJwgUVBGWhgX6w-OwAKqyOH-b0vEJTM5zuHN3JAcP4VnBB0UzDHirHhB4S8uCrB4QW53u3yZunpPGntdppmgyoV7R8nPL5NXy235nkB4AWaRbNPsu81EBgTXHZuSBwmlFe9haMMM/s1600/Lethal+injections.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7b04hJwgUVBGWhgX6w-OwAKqyOH-b0vEJTM5zuHN3JAcP4VnBB0UzDHirHhB4S8uCrB4QW53u3yZunpPGntdppmgyoV7R8nPL5NXy235nkB4AWaRbNPsu81EBgTXHZuSBwmlFe9haMMM/s320/Lethal+injections.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After waiting 11 years to die, 35 death row inmates in Arkansas are likely to be around for even longer. The state's lethal injection supply of potassium chloride is set to run out by January 1, 2017.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arkansas has not had an execution since 2005, due to legal problems centered around their lethal drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2015, Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) set execution dates for 8 death row inmates, but they were put on hold until the state Supreme Court decided on the legality of the state's secrecy law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">9 inmates challenged the state's secrecy law, arguing that Arkansas was violating the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution by not revealing the maker, seller and other information about the drugs used in executions. Due to a previous botched execution in Oklahoma, they also argued that one of the drugs, midazolam, failed to properly block pain receptors, which lead to "cruel and unusual" executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On June 23, the Arkansas Supreme Court voted 4-3 to uphold the state's secrecy policy, enabling the state to continue concealing information about the drugs used in executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, this was just after the press discovered that the state had obtained lethal drugs from a subsidiary of Pfizer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">RT reported on Pfizer declaring its opposition to using their products in executions, citing their website at the time, which stated: "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then, many pharmaceutical companies in the US have decided to stop selling lethal drugs to states with capital punishment, and many regulations in Europe have made it hard for states to import any of the necessary drugs for lethal injections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As pharmaceutical companies continue to make lethal drugs difficult to obtain, states have resorted to alternative sources, but they are not having much luck. The American Pharmacists Association came out with a statement discouraging its members from selling lethal drugs to states for their executions, saying, "Such activities are fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as providers of health care."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without a path to buy lethal drugs, the number of executions has reached its lowest point in a quarter-century, according to a year-end study from the Death Penalty Information Center. The study finds that executions went from a high of 98 in 1998, to only 20 in 2016. This year also saw the fewest death penalty sentences since 1972, when the US Supreme Court case of Furman v. Georgia led to a 4-year-long moratorium on capital punishment sentencing.</div><br />Source: rt.com, December 31, 2016<br /><br /><br /><h2>Arkansas says it hasn't found new execution-drug seller</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">An Arkansas prison system spokesman said Friday that the state doesn't have a replacement for a lethal injection drug that's set to expire today, the latest obstacle in the state's effort to resume executions after more than 11 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves confirmed that the state's supply of potassium chloride - 1 of 3 drugs used in lethal injections - expires Sunday. Graves declined to say whether officials are working to find a replacement. "Our current supply remains unchanged," Graves said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arkansas hasn't put an inmate to death since 2005, and executions are on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a request to weigh in on a ruling upholding the state's death penalty law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state Supreme Court in June reversed a lower court's decision against the state's execution secrecy law, which requires the Department of Correction to conceal the maker, seller and other information about the execution drugs. Justices have stayed that ruling while the inmates appeal to the nation's high court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Death row inmates challenging the law say using the drugs could lead to cruel and unusual punishment and that the state reneged on an earlier pledge to share information about the drugs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arkansas has 35 inmates on death row. Gov. Asa Hutchinson set execution dates in 2015 for the 8 inmates involved in the lawsuit before the executions were put on hold by the state Supreme Court during the challenge to the secrecy law.</div><br />Source: Associated Press, January 1, 2017<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

No refills: Last remaining Arkansas death penalty drugs expire soon

After waiting 11 years to die, 35 death row inmates in Arkansas are likely to be around for even longer. The state's lethal injection su...

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Nebraska: Hearing on controversial lethal injection protocol proposal

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAh4PRMLVNVUqLZN65-ItpMTZUcPfRRvbsE61WhDEKPByTFMNJf84HU0AByW-N8ARKz7BjrDRPtYkjE03MWTTQ5ysKwyhxfmeTDUyBTwAE9-qPoGPmZyVetVwvgy8me2pPKFGSZQ7zWg/s1600/Nebraska+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nebraska's death chamber" border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAh4PRMLVNVUqLZN65-ItpMTZUcPfRRvbsE61WhDEKPByTFMNJf84HU0AByW-N8ARKz7BjrDRPtYkjE03MWTTQ5ysKwyhxfmeTDUyBTwAE9-qPoGPmZyVetVwvgy8me2pPKFGSZQ7zWg/s400/Nebraska+death+chamber.jpg" title="Nebraska's death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nebraska's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A state hearing on a controversial lethal injection protocol proposal will begin at 9 a.m. Friday at the State Office Building in Lincoln. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who opposes the death penalty, and says the proposed protocol raises constitutional questions, will be at the hearing, he said, and ACLU of Nebraska will submit testimony. ACLU presented a petition with 2,000 signatures gathered from across the state to the hearing officer earlier this week, said ACLU Executive Director Danielle Conrad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The petition tells Gov. Pete Ricketts that Nebraskans want transparency in death penalty protocols. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dale Baich is an assistant federal public defender in Arizona who has witnessed executions, including John Joubert's in Nebraska in 1996, and has been involved in challenges to execution protocols in a number of states.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said Thursday that transparency is important in execution protocols, because any time the government acts, its citizens should be fully informed. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The protocol as drafted is incredibly vague," he said, "and raised more questions than it answers."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It doesn't seem that a lot of thought was put into the protocol, he said. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Because of this I see years of litigation trying to resolve issues not addressed or contemplated by the drafters," he said. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state Department of Corrections has said its attorney, Julie Smith, drafted the protocol, but no drafts, documentation, correspondence or paper trail was available when requested through Freedom of Information requests by the Journal Star. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those wanting to testify on the revisions to the protocol, written shortly after Nebraskans voted to keep the death penalty as an option for first-degree murder convictions, can do so before a hearing officer at 301 Centennial Mall in the lower level conference room. Testimony is limited to 5 minutes per person. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The hearing officer is there to take testimony and will not answer questions on the protocol," said Dawn-Renee Smith, Department of Correctional Services communications director. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Corrections Director Scott Frakes said he would keep an open mind about any comments or testimony received by the department on the proposed protocol. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As it is proposed, it allows for the department to change the lethal injection drugs for an execution based on availability, and to notify the condemned inmate of the drug(s) to be used and the order they will be administered, if more than one, 60 days before a death warrant is requested from the Nebraska Supreme Court. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They may be directly purchased or obtained through the Department of Pharmacy or any other "appropriate source," including a compounding pharmacist or chemist. A chemical analysis will verify the substance, according to the protocol. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The director may authorize any records or information identifying a person, company or entity supplying the drugs to be confidential.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://journalstar.com/legislature/death-penalty-protocol-hearing-will-be-friday/article_96a4e187-4634-5906-98f1-0156b1c83454.html" target="_blank">Lincoln Journal Star</a>, Joane Young, December 29, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

Nebraska: Hearing on controversial lethal injection protocol proposal

Nebraska's death chamber A state hearing on a controversial lethal injection protocol proposal will begin at 9 a.m. Friday at the State ...

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US capital punishment fall to 40-year low in 2016

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBu3-pmv1QknN8Gd_H9VQIr3726mikiS-OEZcOvhZm_oOxE16L-gYbwRdNrWCL8u_CyeolNlwykgiiV9BVyeaiUDvDPQf0WlY6baTOgppYaxivgX5cSlESRPWGBTDhHnTkNAE1U398a8-/s1600/21st+century.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBu3-pmv1QknN8Gd_H9VQIr3726mikiS-OEZcOvhZm_oOxE16L-gYbwRdNrWCL8u_CyeolNlwykgiiV9BVyeaiUDvDPQf0WlY6baTOgppYaxivgX5cSlESRPWGBTDhHnTkNAE1U398a8-/s400/21st+century.gif" width="400" /></a></div><b>Fewer death sentences were handed down in the US this year than at any time in the last four decades, a study finds.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only 30 such penalties were imposed in 2016, the lowest since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976 after a four-year hiatus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Five states, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Florida and Missouri, carried out 20 executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It continues a 20-year downward trend in US capital punishment, says the Death Penalty Information Center.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/" target="_blank">DPIC report</a> showed that not only have executions slowed or even halted in the vast majority of states, but juries and judges are sentencing fewer people to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This year, death sentences will be lower than at any other time in the modern history of the American death penalty," says Robert Dunham, executive director of the DPIC and lead author of the study. "That, I think, is a big story."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the US death penalty was reinstated 40 years ago, the number of death sentences and executions began steadily rising.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1977, 137 death sentences were handed down.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The trend peaked in the 1990s, with 98 executions in 1999 and 315 new death sentences in 1996.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then the downward trend began.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2016, only 30 new death sentences were handed down, and 20 executions took place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That was the fewest number of executions since 1991.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of the five states that put inmates to death in 2016, Georgia led the way with nine executions, followed by Texas with seven, Alabama with two, and both Florida and Missouri executed one person.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">New death sentences are down 37% from 2015, according to the report, and fewer death sentences were imposed in 2016 "than in any other year since the Supreme Court declared US death penalty statutes unconstitutional in... 1972".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Dunham points out that the low number of new death sentences was notable as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Georgia, for example, sentenced no-one to death in 2016.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Texas had four new death sentences, which is very low for the state," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Dallas and Harris counties, which is where Houston and Dallas are, imposed no new death sentences for only the second time since the 1980s."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The halt of executions in some states can be explained by the difficulty procuring legally acceptable <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36292193" target="_blank">drugs needed for lethal injections in the US</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide them, and the European Union banned the export of the drugs to the US in 2011.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some states have resorted to clandestine deals with compounding pharmacies or different drug cocktails, and a series of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27215508" target="_blank">botched executions</a> in recent years has raised legal and ethical concerns about these practices.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FjVeBIOCT0IeRv_uebT-eiYv2P42FwBBXWfUeMy8YSLHLDLtBOUhkvPcYTzYfr0Q5ahR_lMvra7hNAhbOPm07AeUS2T6PRe2daWyfcH-CncI6zEWwATiHc7_ZsHeTBeizEplZ9fOpbLS/s1600/break.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FjVeBIOCT0IeRv_uebT-eiYv2P42FwBBXWfUeMy8YSLHLDLtBOUhkvPcYTzYfr0Q5ahR_lMvra7hNAhbOPm07AeUS2T6PRe2daWyfcH-CncI6zEWwATiHc7_ZsHeTBeizEplZ9fOpbLS/s400/break.gif" width="400" /></a></div>Legal challenges that can take decades to resolve and exonerations around the country have also slowed executions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So far there have been 156 men and women exonerated from death row in the US.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Lawyers cost an awful lot more than prison guards, and there is just enough ambivalence for state killing as a criminal punishment to make the due process standard higher than for other kinds of punishment," says Frank Zimring, a death penalty expert and professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The combination of high expense and low assurance has sort of taken the enthusiasm out."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to various polls, American opinions are roughly split when it comes to the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/29/support-for-death-penalty-lowest-in-more-than-four-decades/" target="_blank">Pew Research Center poll</a> shows approval for the death penalty has declined from a high of 80% in the 1990s to only 49% in favour now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, Robert Blecker, a death penalty supporter and professor at New York Law School, says that the majority of Americans still favour the use of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"[Approval may be] down from an all-time high of 80%, but it's also up from the 1968 low," he says.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"California supported it, Oklahoma put it in its constitution, and Nebraska reversed its own legislature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"How much clearer evidence could you possibly want as to where American public opinion is?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During this year's election season, three US states had items related to capital punishment on their ballots, and in all three states, death penalty proponents won big on election night.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nebraskans voted to bring their death penalty back after legislators <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32910693" target="_blank">banned the practice</a> in 2015.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Californians voted to speed up their executions rather than abolish them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Oklahoma, voters approved new constitutional language to protect the use of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Zimring concedes that the general public may not necessarily approve of the precipitous decline in the use of capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But he points out that when other nations abolished their death penalty it took some time for the general public to concur.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"When you study the western European decline of the death penalty, it turns out that public support for hanging people persists for almost 20 years after moral leadership abolishes the death penalty," he says.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It takes a long time for public passions to catch up with the moral leadership of elites."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although this year's figures continue to bolster the narrative that the American criminal justice system is increasingly turning away from the death penalty, the end of capital punishment may still be a long way off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The end game is going to be long and expensive and in a deep way, unnecessary," says Mr Zimring.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"That's billions of dollars and many too many executions in the American future."</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38371479" target="_blank">BBC News</a>, Jessica Lussenhop, December 21, 2016<br /><br /><br /><h2>The Strange Case of the American Death Penalty</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwTmZcrR1QcpiLUbkxn6Jp_cHISVJuD2c8si4LKlVMC2Q_LQ79SVx2JJsdWv3QutacI-AciHorJQrt7FeW5EhT8Zw4CPG8Sq0_FEcBQLCQNXsUK_9gvhjg3aZSXbE7Kr7XXeaijeJF4dK/s1600/k5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwTmZcrR1QcpiLUbkxn6Jp_cHISVJuD2c8si4LKlVMC2Q_LQ79SVx2JJsdWv3QutacI-AciHorJQrt7FeW5EhT8Zw4CPG8Sq0_FEcBQLCQNXsUK_9gvhjg3aZSXbE7Kr7XXeaijeJF4dK/s400/k5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>It’s a paradoxical moment in the history of the death penalty in the United States. The number of executions has dwindled to just a few, but the voters, even in the most liberal states, seem to want the punishment to remain on the books. That’s the message of the <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/" target="_blank">annual report</a> from the Death Penalty Information Center, which produces the most comprehensive analysis of the subject each year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The headline on the report—“Another Record Decline in Death Penalty Use”—notes that the remarkable fall in the number of executions and death sentences is part of a longer trend, one that continued this year. The numbers were the lowest in the modern era of the American death penalty, after a period, between 1972 and 1976, when the Supreme Court put a stop to executions. There were just twenty executions in the United States in 2016, down from a peak of ninety-eight, in 1999. Even more remarkable, just thirty people were sentenced to death this year, compared with three hundred and fifteen in 1996. Indeed, as the report further notes, “Fewer new death sentences were imposed in the past decade than in the decade preceding the Supreme Court’s invalidation of capital punishment in 1972.” The reduction in death sentences means that the decline in executions is likely to continue as well, because the pipeline of new cases is not as full.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite these numbers, death-penalty abolitionists also received a host of bad news this year. In 2015, after a long political struggle, the Nebraska state legislature (which is unicameral) repealed the death penalty. But supporters of capital punishment put the issue on the ballot in the 2016 election, and more than sixty per cent of the voters supported its restoration. Voters in California were asked to address two contradictory initiatives concerning the death penalty. One would have ended executions in the state once and for all; the other sought to remove some of the legal barriers that have prevented executions from proceeding quickly, or really at all, in the state. The abolition initiative failed, with fifty-three per cent of the voters opposed, and the law for expediting the death penalty passed, with slightly more than fifty-one per cent of the vote. (It’s not clear what, if any, practical difference passage of the initiative will mean. The legal standoffs in California are likely to continue. There are <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state_by_state" target="_blank">seven hundred and forty-one</a> people on death row in the state, but there hasn’t been an execution there since 2006.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The debate over the death penalty seems to have taken on some of the characteristics of the Presidential race this year, as a contest between populists and élitists. Judges play the part of the élites in this particular debate, and the judiciary, as a whole, has shown ever-greater hostility toward approving executions. This year, the Supreme Court ruled for prisoners in several high-profile death-penalty decisions, holding that racial bias infected jury selection, in Foster v. Chatman, a case from Georgia, and rejecting Florida’s system of allowing judges to impose the death penalty even when jurors support life in prison, in Hurst v. Florida. (The Florida legislature sought to correct the defects identified by the Supreme Court in the Hurst case, only to have the Florida Supreme Court overrule the new law as well.) Delaware’s Supreme Court also nullified its state’s death-penalty law this year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOe-7Oh76c4SgqTgbQPvj9WuZvXdUNsVzT21T8yBzDqmoborj19YG7Orkhyphenhyphen0OskknQx8gVCBIh7VhTeBimD1pCwnaIPnruBRS4-MtZ-ySFncOH6CFrCpLMuzLVQgxXEINFTxNf9eu3Fg/s1600/right+trick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOe-7Oh76c4SgqTgbQPvj9WuZvXdUNsVzT21T8yBzDqmoborj19YG7Orkhyphenhyphen0OskknQx8gVCBIh7VhTeBimD1pCwnaIPnruBRS4-MtZ-ySFncOH6CFrCpLMuzLVQgxXEINFTxNf9eu3Fg/s400/right+trick.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>But, as the election results in California and Nebraska illustrate, the voters—the populists—continue to back the death penalty, as does the President-elect. (Donald Trump notoriously called for the execution of the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trump-and-the-central-park-five" target="_blank">Central Park Five</a>, fourteen-, fifteen-, and sixteen-year-olds who were charged with a high-profile rape and beating, in 1989. Even though the five were later exonerated, Trump, during this year’s campaign, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/opinion/why-trump-doubled-down-on-the-central-park-five.html" target="_blank">reiterated his belief in their guilt</a>.) The Death Penalty Information Center report notes that public-opinion polls show some decline in support for the death penalty, but the opposition has never achieved close to a majority. And, notwithstanding ambiguous poll numbers, politicians from Trump to Barack Obama understand that support for the death penalty, at least in some form, is less politically risky than opposition to it. (Obama, for example, has supported executions for “extraordinarily heinous crimes.”) Trump’s victory, and those of other Republicans, can only reinforce that view.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many factors have led to the decline in the death penalty in recent years: less crime over all, with less fear among the public as a result; DNA exonerations leading jurors to pause before imposing death; the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to provide lethal-injection drugs and the resulting search (still under way) for a drug protocol that passes constitutional muster; the length and expense of the appeals mandated by the Supreme Court. All those reasons for the decline remain, but so, too, does the United States remain a country that has had the death penalty in effect for virtually all of its history. That’s not likely to change, either. The death penalty may keep shrinking, but it will probably never entirely go away.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-strange-case-of-the-american-death-penalty" target="_blank">The New Yorker</a>, Jeffrey Toobin, December 21, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

US capital punishment fall to 40-year low in 2016

Fewer death sentences were handed down in the US this year than at any time in the last four decades, a study finds. Only 30 such penalties ...

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Nebraska prisons chief gets new license for death penalty drugs, with 'no immediate plans' to use it

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAh4PRMLVNVUqLZN65-ItpMTZUcPfRRvbsE61WhDEKPByTFMNJf84HU0AByW-N8ARKz7BjrDRPtYkjE03MWTTQ5ysKwyhxfmeTDUyBTwAE9-qPoGPmZyVetVwvgy8me2pPKFGSZQ7zWg/s1600/Nebraska+death+chamber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nebraska's death chamber" border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAh4PRMLVNVUqLZN65-ItpMTZUcPfRRvbsE61WhDEKPByTFMNJf84HU0AByW-N8ARKz7BjrDRPtYkjE03MWTTQ5ysKwyhxfmeTDUyBTwAE9-qPoGPmZyVetVwvgy8me2pPKFGSZQ7zWg/s400/Nebraska+death+chamber.jpg" title="Nebraska's death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nebraska's death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">LINCOLN — Nebraska’s top prison official has obtained a new license to import foreign-made death penalty drugs but so far has taken no steps to use it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The federal Drug Enforcement Administration issued the importer’s license to Scott Frakes, director of the State Department of Correctional Services, about two weeks after the Nov. 8 vote that reinstated the death penalty in Nebraska.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Frakes submitted the application Sept. 22, according to documents obtained this week by The World-Herald through an open records request.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“No new effort has been made to import lethal-injection drugs,” said Dawn-Renee Smith, spokeswoman for the Corrections Department, in response to follow-up questions. “There are no immediate plans to utilize the (importer’s) license. The license was renewed in the normal course of business.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The detail comes about two weeks after the department proposed changes in how it carries out lethal injections. Among other things, the department wants to hide the identity of its drug supplier and allow the director to choose what drug or combination of drugs to use.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Smith said corrections officials are focused on the lethal injection protocol changes, which will be the topic of a Dec. 30 public hearing in Lincoln.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2015 the Legislature repealed the death penalty over the veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts. But last month, 61 percent of voters overturned the repeal and reinstated capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ricketts has said he will make every effort to carry out the will of the majority and proceed with the executions of the 10 men on Nebraska’s death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although state officials have been vague about how they intend to obtain the drugs, the protocol changes seem designed to go through a domestic supplier, most likely an independent compounding pharmacy. Maintaining a valid importer’s license, however, would give prison officials another option.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nebraska’s current lethal injection protocol requires the use of three drugs in a prescribed sequence. State officials have twice imported drugs from India, but the supplies expired before they could be used.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2015 Ricketts announced that the Corrections Department had purchased two of the drugs through the same broker in India. But the state’s attempt to import was thwarted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which said one of the drugs is no longer permitted for use in this country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The broker, Chris Harris, has refused a demand for a refund. The Corrections Department has not taken additional steps to acquire the drugs it paid Harris to deliver, Smith said Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska, has been a critic of the plan to shroud parts of the death penalty protocol in secrecy. She said the state’s acquisition of a new importer’s license prompts more questions than answers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The bottom line is this department and this process requires more, not less, transparency to ensure the constitutional rights of all are respected and that Nebraska’s long tradition of open government remains,” Conrad said.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/nebraska-prisons-chief-gets-new-license-for-death-penalty-drugs/article_b0ccf77a-63e4-5472-bba6-b62b49f39e8e.html" target="_blank">Omaha World-Herald</a>, Joe Duggan, December 15, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

Nebraska prisons chief gets new license for death penalty drugs, with 'no immediate plans' to use it

Nebraska's death chamber LINCOLN — Nebraska’s top prison official has obtained a new license to import foreign-made death penalty drugs ...

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