Arkansas Is Accused of Deception in Buying Drug Used in Executions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times



The New York Times
By ALAN BLINDER
53 mins ago


The nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributor has accused the State of Arkansas of using a false pretense to buy a drug the state is expected to use in the executions of up to seven men over 10 days this month, and two other drug companies urged a federal judge to bar the state from using their products to carry out death sentences.

The mix of challenges and allegations from the drug manufacturers and distributors, who have broadly opposed states’ relying on their products for capital punishment, played out as a judge in Little Rock on Friday considered blocking the executions, which are scheduled to begin Monday.

The judge, Kristine G. Baker of Federal District Court, is weighing an array of arguments, including one concerning fears that a lethal injection drug, midazolam, will not adequately sedate the prisoners before they receive medicines to stop their breathing and their hearts. Although the drug has been used successfully, it has also been implicated in botched executions.

Arkansas initially planned to put eight men to death this month, but the courts have blocked the executions. In a decision that was expected to be appealed, a county judge on Friday stayed most of the executions. The original schedule, constructed because of the looming expiration date of the state’s midazolam supply, had no equal in the modern history of American capital punishment, experts on the death penalty said.

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/arkansas-is-accused-of-deception-in-buying-drug-used-in-executions/ar-BBzRhB0?li=BBnb7Kz

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

1. Theft by deception is illegal in most places

Although I continue to expect that a passenger is going to die on an international flight who will turn out to be a state corrections bureaucrat with lethal injection drugs shoved up their ass.

[Warpy]

2. Midazolam is probably the WORST drug they could possibly use

It's incredibly short acting, leaving the poor bastard on the stretcher semiconscious as the poison paralyzes his muscles and stops his heart minutes later. There is entirely too much farting around during an execution to use it.