Alabama to carry out first execution using Lundbeck drugs

Lundbeck: "Yes, our drug kills!"

Alabama is today set to execute its first prisoner using drugs produced by Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck.

Jason Williams will be killed using the barbiturate pentobarbital, after US shortages of previously-used drugs led Alabama to switch. Copenhagen-headquartered firm Lundbeck is the sole supplier of this drug – also known as Nembutal – to death rows in America.

Alabama is the latest in an increasingly long line of states to start using pentobarbital for executions as a result of shortages of the anaesthetic sodium thiopental. Williams will be the 11th person in the US executed with Lundbeck drugs.

Legal action charity Reprieve has asked Lundbeck to take action to prevent its drugs from being used in this way. While Lundbeck claims to be strongly opposed to the use of its products in executions, the firm has yet to explain adequately why it cannot do more to put a stop to it. In Williams’ case, Lundbeck refused to submit an ‘amicus curiae’ brief to the court specifically stating its opposition to the use of pentobarbital in his execution, and raising concerns over the use of the product for purposes for which it was not intended.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said:

“Lundbeck are fast becoming better known for ending lives than for improving them.

“Aside from moral concerns, this is damaging their reputation as a business – one investor recently sold their shares and others are asking questions.

“Lundbeck should exit the execution drug market immediately if they want to salvage their reputation.”

1. For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve's press office on +44 (0)20 7427 1082 / (0)7791 755 415

2. Reprieve previously asked Lundbeck to submit an amicus curiae (‘friend of the court) brief, providing a suggested draft, but the firm declined. http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2011_05_12_Lundbeck_refuses_amicus

3. Reprieve has suggested a range of possible courses of action to Lundbeck to put a stop to the use of its drugs in executions – a briefing on the issue can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/static/downloads/2011_05_12_PUB_NEMBUTAL_DISTRIBUTION_BRIEFING.pdf

4. Alabama will become the sixth US state to have carried out executions using Lundbeck’s pentobarbital. The other states and the names of those executed so far are as follows:

Mississippi: Benny Stevens, Rodney Gray

Oklahoma: John David Duty, Billy Don Alverson, Jeffrey Matthews

Ohio: Johnnie Baston, Clarence Carter, Daniel Bedford

South Carolina: Jeffrey Motts

Texas: Cary Kerr

5. Danish pension fund Unipension recently sold their shares in Lundbeck, citing concerns over their use in executions and the company’s unwillingness to engage with investors on the issue. Unipension told the Associated Press: "It has not been possible for Unipension to get a detailed report regarding Lundbeck's efforts to ensure that its products are not used in an unwanted manner […] It has been our impression that Lundbeck did not want to engage in a genuine dialogue with us as an investor."

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/05/13/general-eu-denmark-execution-drug_8465488.html

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk


Related article: "Pentobarbital: The Irreversible Cure", The Pentobarbital Experiment, May 19, 2011

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Brain-damaged man to be executed using Lundbeck’s neurological treatment drugs

A man with grave neurological disorders is scheduled to be executed tomorrow [Tuesday] with drugs that should be used to treat him.

Ohio is set to execute 63 year-old Danny Lee Bedford - who suffers from seizures, strokes and brain trauma - using a massive overdose of a drug made by Danish firm Lundbeck and originally developed for the treatment of seizures.

The range of disorders afflicting Danny severely impairs his neurological functioning. Unable to carry out simple tasks or comprehend and retain information, he has no memory of the crime for which he has been condemned and is incapable of understanding the punishment.

Legal action charity Reprieve is asking Lundbeck’s CEO to write urgently to Ohio’s Governor in support of a petition filed by Danny’s lawyers which states that his neurological condition renders him incompetent to be executed. Reprieve is also asking that CEO Ulf Wiinberg uses Lundbeck’s expertise to confirm Bedford’s neurological deficiencies and detail the treatment he should be receiving for them. As leaders in the field of neurology and psychiatry, Lundbeck are well placed to diagnose and prescribe treatment for Danny; and as manufacturers of the drug that Ohio DOC intend to use to kill him, their contribution to his legal case will be crucial.

Reprieve’s Director, Clive Stafford Smith said: “Lundbeck's mission is ‘to improve the quality of life for those suffering from psychiatric and neurological disorders’, but they are quickly gaining a reputation for ending lives rather than improving them. Lundbeck should exit the execution drug market immediately lest all of their noble claims be revealed to be meaningless.”

1. For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve's press office on +44 (0)20 7427 1082 / (0)7791 755 415

2. Danny Lee Bedford has been on death row for nearly three decades. He is borderline mentally retarded and suffers from dementia. Last week, his lawyers filed a Ford petition claiming that his vast array of neurological disorders render him incompetent to be executed. Reprieve has asked Lundbeck CEO, Ulf Wiinberg, to send a letter supporting the Ford petition to Ohio’s Governor Kasich, outlining Danny’s neurological deficiencies and detailing the treatment he should be given.

3. Reprieve wrote to Ulf Wiinberg asking Lundbeck to provide an urgent mental health assessment of Danny Lee Bedford on 13th May - the letter can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/static/downloads/2011_05_13_PUB_CSS_to_Lundbeck.pdf

Reprieve also wrote today to ask Lundbeck to supply drugs which would improve his quality of life, rather than end it - the letter can be found here: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/static/downloads/2011_05_16_PUB_CSS_to_Lundbeck.pdf

4. Daniel Bedford will be the 9th person to be executed using Lundbeck's pentobarbital. Ohio was the one of the first states to change their lethal injection protocol to Lundbeck's drug, and the only one so far to have opted to use it alone rather than in the three-drug cocktail. To date, over two-thirds of states with active death chambers have now switched their lethal injection protocol to Lundbeck's pentobarbital.

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

Source: Reprieve, May 16, 2011

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Europe fights the death penalty—with drugs

Danish company manufactures U.S. executioners' anesthetic of choice for lethal injections

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has an ethical dilemma.

It prides itself on making products that improve peoples’ lives. But one is helping put people to death.

Convicted killer Benny Joe Stevens was executed Tuesday in Mississippi’s Parchman State Penitentiary with a lethal injection of the anesthetic pentobarbital made by Lundbeck.

Denmark, like the rest of the European Union, is officially opposed to the death penalty. Lundbeck spokesman Anders Schroll said the company holds that position in the Danish headquarters as well as in its American office.

“This is a misuse of our product,” Schroll said. “We are in an ethical dilemma where we are opposed to the use of our medication for capital punishment while at the same time we want to make sure that patients who benefit from our medication get access to it.”

Pentobarbital also is used in the treatment of seizures in humans and in anesthesia and euthanasia of animals. Only Lundbeck still manufactures the drug for purchase in the United States. Schroll provided letters from doctors urging the company not to withdraw the 50 million doses of the drug sold each year.

For its part, Schroll said Lundbeck has sent letters to prisons in 11 states in recent months demanding they cease using pentobarbital as part of the lethal injection “cocktail” because “this is just not what we stand for” he said. The Danish foreign ministry has pursued the matter through its contacts. No prison has responded. In fact, more and more states are intending to use the drug, with Virginia, the secondmost-active death-penalty state, announcing a switch just this week, following the lead execution state, Texas, earlier this month.

A conundrum

The mid-sized Danish company is left in this “conundrum,” as Schroll put it, because other businesses have put an end to their products’ use in executions. Sodium thiopental was used as the requisite sedative in the lethal mix by all but one of the 36 death-penalty states until very recently. The only U.S. maker of sodium thiopental, Hospira, started running short in summer 2010 and stopped making it altogether in January when it moved its manufacturing facility to Italy, which forbade using it for executions.

The difficulty in obtaining sodium thiopental led to a mad scramble by institutions to obtain it, an effort that in some cases involved the Food and Drug Administration, which had to bypass certain regulations so it could be imported from Britain, where a company called Dream Pharma operated out of a driving school. The desperation of prison authorities and dodgy practices came to light in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the London-based human rights group Reprieve.

The British government late last year put an emergency export ban on sodium thiopental, after being sued by Reprieve. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has now seized stockpiles of sodium thiopental due to concerns raised about the legality of its import.

But there are also concerns about whether the drug made by Dream Pharma actually worked. The mother of executed Georgia inmate Brandon Rhode came to Europe recently to share the story of what she believes was the agonizing death of her son last year due to defective sodium thiopental. A lethal-injection expert said Brandon’s eyes remained open during his execution, indicating the sedative didn’t work properly. Patches Rohde pleaded with the British government to extend the emergency ban on the drug, saying U.S. authorities had “not only killed Brandon but tortured him … . I beg [you] to keep this torture from happening to anyone else.”

Last month Britain added pentobarbital along with two other lethal-injection drugs to the emergency export ban.

“We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances,” said U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable, “and are clear that British drugs should not be used to carry out lethal injections.”

Patches Rohde is gratified. Speaking from her home in Mississippi this week, she said, “There’s just no words than can get across how it feels. The fact that Europeans are going to work harder to help people in prison in the U.S. than the people in the U.S. are is just”—she paused cautiously—“it’s shameful for the Americans … but it’s great. It really is.”

Source: TucsonSentinel.com, May 13, 2011

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

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Lundbeck refuses to ask US court to prevent the use of its drugs in executions

Pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has refused to submit testimony to a US court opposing the use of its drugs in executions.

On behalf of capital defence lawyers in Alabama, legal action charity Reprieve had asked the company to submit an ‘amicus curiae’ brief to Alabama’s Supreme Court, voicing opposition to the use of Lundbeck-produced pentobarbital in the impending execution of Jason Williams and confirming that such use of the product was untested and not recommended.

However, Lundbeck has so far refused to take this simple action, even though it could help to stave off the increasing use of their products in US execution chambers – something to which they have claimed to be ‘adamantly opposed’ and to be doing 'all they can' to prevent.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said:

“It is hard to see why Lundbeck would not take this straightforward opportunity which could help to save a life. With increasing numbers of US states using Lundbeck’s drugs to kill people, surely this is the very least they could do.

“There is still time for Lundbeck to change their mind and take this simple step. If they continue to refuse, their company ‘code of ethics’ will not be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  

For further information please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve’s press office on +44 (0)20 7427 1082 / (0)7791 755 415

1. Reprieve submitted a suggested draft of an amicus curiae (‘friend of the court’) brief to Lundbeck, which set out their opposition to the use of their drug Nembutal (another name for the barbiturate pentobarbital) in the execution of prisoners (a position Lundbeck has previously voiced publicly); voiced concerns over the use of the product for purposes for which it was not intended and potential safety implications; and stressed that such a use went against the company’s ethical position. However, Lundbeck claimed regulatory issues prevented them from doing so – it is unclear what these issues are. Copies of the suggested draft amicus curiae brief and relevant correspondence with Lundbeck are available on request.

2. Jason Williams is scheduled to be executed in Alabama on Thursday 19 May 2011, using a three-drug cocktail which includes Lundbeck's Nembutal (pentobarbital).  Williams' lawyers were only recently notified of Alabama's decision to switch from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital and the prison has released very limited information about their new lethal injection protocol. Veterinarians commonly use pentobarbital to put down animals, but they specifically rule out its use as part of a three drug cocktail in this manner due to safety concerns.

3. Increasing numbers of US states have started using pentobarbital in executions as domestic supplies of the (until recently) widely used anaesthetic sodium thiopental have dried up. Lundbeck is the sole supplier of pentobarbital in the US.

4. Seven prisoners have now been executed in the US using Lundbeck’s drugs, most recently Jeffrey Motts in South Carolina.

5. The increasing number of states using Lundbeck’s pentobarbital in executions includes those with the busiest (Texas) and second-busiest (Virginia) death chambers in the country. Virginia’s switch was reported earlier this week (9 May 2011). http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/virginia-to-use-new-drug-in-executions-amid-shortage-seizures-of-commonly-used-sedative/2011/05/09/AFq3STaG_story.html

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

Contact Lundbeck,  send an email (contact@lundbeck.com)

Source: Reprieve, May 12, 2011

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Major investor dumps Lundbeck shares over death drug sales

A pension fund has sold millions of Euros’ worth of shares in pharmaceutical company Lundbeck as a result of concerns about the use of their drugs in US executions.

US states are increasingly turning to Lundbeck’s pentobarbital (Nembutal) to carry out executions by lethal injection, after domestic shortages hit supplies of another drug which was, until recently, widely used in American executions.

Lundbeck has claimed it is doing ‘everything it can’ to prevent this from taking place. However, Danish pension fund Unipension yesterday sold 40m Danish Krone (5.4m Euro) worth of shares, citing Lundbeck’s failure to ‘engage in a genuine dialogue’ about their efforts to ensure their products are not used ‘in an undesirable way’.

Meanwhile, Denmark’s largest pension scheme, ATP, have said that ‘there are still things that need clarification’ by Lundbeck concerning this issue.

Reprieve, a legal action charity, has asked Lundbeck to investigate a number of possible courses of action to prevent their drugs being used in this way. However, the firm has so far refused to either adopt these or to explain in any detail why they are not feasible.

Several investment consultants have recently been in touch with Reprieve to ask about the ethical investment issues concerning the use of Lundbeck’s drugs in executions.

Unipension’s action could raise serious questions for other institutional investors in Lundbeck around the world – such as Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, which at the end of 2010 held a stake in Lundbeck worth around $25 million.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said:

“That Lundbeck has refused to adopt any of the strategies available to them to prevent the use of their drugs in executions is baffling. As more evidence comes out about how easy it would be for the company to restrict the distribution of the product, serious questions about the company’s integrity need to be asked.

“Lundbeck’s failure to provide adequate answers has frustrated politicians, doctors, journalists, human rights groups and now investors.

“The moral consequences of being complicit in executions should have been enough to make Lundbeck take action; perhaps now that they are being hit in the pocket, they’ll realise they simply cannot afford to ignore this issue for one day longer.” 

1. For further information, please contact Donald Campbell in Reprieve’s press office on +44 (0)20 7427 1082 / (0)7791 755 415

2. A factsheet on the distribution Lundbeck’s Nembutal and the potential courses of action available to the company to stop its use in lethal injections is available here:

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/static/downloads/2011_05_12_PUB_NEMBUTAL_DISTRIBUTION_BRIEFING.pdf

3. Unipension’s statement (in Danish) can be found here: http://www.unipension.dk/Unipension/Unipension/Nyheder.aspx?NewsItem=36d5ef2e-2eb0-4eea-bcb6-b5566c2aedf6 ]

4. ATP’s response to Unipension’s action (Danish) can be found here: http://m.business.dk/touch/article.pml?guid=14032973

5. For Norway’s Government fund investment in Lundbeck, see ‘Danes won’t block execution drug’, Jan M. Olsen and Karl Ritter, Associated Press, On Wednesday March 30, 2011 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-Exclusive-Danes-wont-block-apf-2309525945.html?x=0&.v=3

“Among Lundbeck's institutional investors are Scandinavian pension funds, including oil-rich Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, which at the end of 2010 held a 0.68 percent stake in Lundbeck worth 150 million Norwegian kroner (about $25 million).”

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

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Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Mississippi executes Benny Joe Stevens

The state of Mississippi executed death row inmate Benny Joe Stevens (left), 52, at 6:22 p.m. today.

Stevens was convicted in 1999 of killing his ex-wife, Glenda Reid; her husband, Wesley Lee Reid; her 11-year-old son, Dylan Lee; and Lee's 10-year-old friend Heath Pounds.

He used his final moments to ask his victims' family members for forgiveness.

"What I've taken from God and you, I can't replace,'he said. I'm sorry."

Prior to his execution, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said Stevens expressed remorse over the crime, particularly the deaths of the 2 children.

"None of them deserved what I did,"Epps recalled.

The U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Haley Barbour denied Stevens' last-ditch pleas for clemency.

Still, Epps said he remained talkative throughout the day. Stevens, who had no infractions during his time behind bars, showered and took a sedative - Valium - before being led to the execution room.

Stevens becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Mississippi and the14th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Stevens becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1249th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Clarion Ledger, Rick Halperin, May 11, 2011

Mississippi execution uses sedative for first time

WASHINGTON — Benny Joe Stevens, who was convicted of killing four people, including two children, has been executed by the state of Mississippi with a drug normally used to euthanize animals.

Stevens, 52, was pronounced dead at 6:22 pm (23:22 GMT) at the state penitentiary in the town of Parchman, according to Mississippi prison officials.

It was the first time the southern state had used the sedative pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental, whose US manufacturer recently said it was no longer making the drug. Pentobarbital is also used in assisted suicides in two US states and as an animal euthanasia.

Mississippi is the latest US state to adopt pentobarbital as part of a three-drug protocol after Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and soon Alabama.

Pentobarbital, which produces an unconscious state, is followed by an injection of pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the inmate, and finally potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Ohio and the state of Washington use one single, massive dose of pentobarbital. The Danish company that makes the drug, Lundbeck Inc., has said it opposes the drug's use in executions.

The US Supreme Court denied a stay of execution, prison officials said.

Stevens appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court over the change from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital, but his appeal was rejected last week.

Stevens was condemned to death for the 1999 murder of his ex-wife, Glenda Reid, Reid's husband, Wesley Reid, their 11-year-old son Dylan and the boy's friend Heath Pounds, in a mobile home park in rural Marion County following a custody dispute over Stevens' daughter.

The daughter, Erica, was wounded, and was a witness against Stevens in his trial.

Source: AFP, May 11, 2011
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Lundbeck drugs allow first South Carolina execution for 2 years

Drugs supplied by pharmaceutical company Lundbeck will today [Friday, May 6, 2011] allow the first execution in South Carolina in two years to go ahead.

Jeffrey Motts is set to be the first prisoner executed in the state using a new three-drug ‘cocktail’, adopted as a result of shortages in the US of a key anaesthetic previously used in the process.

A barbiturate, pentobarbital, will for the first time be used by South Carolina’s authorities as the initial step in the cocktail. This is an untested process which has raised concerns - not least as it is explicitly outlawed by vets for the euthanasia of animals.

Denmark-headquartered Lundbeck is increasingly becoming the major player in the American execution drugs market as it is the sole supplier of pentobarbital to the USA.

Death rows in the US have struggled to get hold of the previously-used drug, sodium thiopental, ever since domestic production ceased and action by Governments and companies around the world opposed to the death penalty cut off many lines of supply. South Carolina had obtained a stockpile of sodium thiopental from a British supplier operating out of the back of a driving school in Acton – however, this was seized towards the end of April by the US Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA). As a result, they have now turned to Lundbeck’s pentobarbital.

Despite this, and the wider issue of the use of their products in executions, Lundbeck have refused to explain why they will not take action to prevent this from happening. Today’s execution is expected to bring the total number of people executed in the US using Lundbeck’s drugs to seven.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said: “Lundbeck say they’re committed to improving life, yet this week alone their drugs have been used for two deaths. Something is indeed rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Source: Reprieve, May 6, 2011

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

Contact Lundbeck,  send an email (contact@lundbeck.com)

Help spread this important message:

Lundbeck: YES! OUR DRUG KILLS

Already 6 human beings executed with Lundbeck's Pentobarbital. Demand Lundbeck Withdraw Execution Drug:http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/demand-lundbeck-withdraw-execution-drug/

Please sign and tell Danish company to stop helping the death penalty business in the USA! This petition is international and open to all! Please select your country, sign and share widely! 

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Texas executes Cary Kerr

Cary Kerr

HUNTSVILLE — Texas used a new three-drug combination to execute a condemned inmate for the first time Tuesday.

Cary Kerr, 46, of Dallas was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. Tuesday in the death house at the Huntsville Unit, nine minutes after the administration of a lethal dose of drug that included for the first time pentobarbital in place of sodium thiopental, which is no longer available. The state has used sodium thiopental since 1982.

Just before the lethal dose of drugs began to flow, Kerr proclaimed his innocence in the 2001 rape and murder of 34-year-old Pamela Horton in Haltom City near Fort Worth.

“To the state of Texas: I'm an innocent man,” Kerr said in his last statement. “Never trust a court-appointed attorney.”

Kerr then asked his friends to search for the person he claimed committed the crime.

“Check that DNA,” he said. “Check Scott.”

As the sedation drugs began to take effect, Kerr sighed deeply and said, “Here we go.”

“Lord Jesus,” he said. “Jesus.”

Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block Kerr’s execution. Kerr's appeal didn't challenge the drug switch. Rather, he argued that a lawyer didn't properly represent him in earlier appeals, according to the Associated Press.

Kerr told the AP he first met Horton when they lived in the same trailer park, then ran into her the evening of July 11, 2001, at a bar where he was celebrating passing the test to get his commercial truck driving license.

"I've never denied being with her," he said recently from death row.

Kerr said he was "half drunk" and Horton was drunk when he decided to take her to his place where they had sex and then argued. She left alive, he insisted.

Authorities said Kerr pushed Horton out of a moving vehicle after sexually assaulting her, which caused her death. A taxi driver discovered her body in the street at 2 a.m. the following morning.

Kerr requested a final meal of pizza, fried chicken, baked chicken, lasagna, tacos, pork ribs with picante sauce, cheeseburger, quiche with meat, cheese and broccoli and ice cream for dessert.

The next execution, of Gayland Bradford of Dallas County, is scheduled June 1.

Kerr, who lived most of his life in the Dallas area, previously served a year in jail after pleading guilty to a 1999 charge of assault with intent to do bodily harm.

Kerr becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas this year and the 467th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. At least 8 others have execution dates in the coming months, including 4 in June.

Kerr becomes the 228th condemned inmate to be put to death since rick Perry became governor of Texas in 2001.

Kerr becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1247th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: The Huntsville Item, Rick Halperin, May 3, 2011

Texas executes first inmate using drug used on animals

(Reuters) - Texas on Tuesday carried out its first execution using a sedative often used to euthanize animals.

Cary Kerr, 46, was put to death by lethal injection for the 2001 sexual assault and strangling of Pamela Horton.

The new drug, pentobarbital, replaced sodium thiopental in Texas' three-drug execution protocol.

The change was necessary because Hospira Inc. of Illinois announced in January it would stop making the sodium thiopental after Italy objected to Hospira manufacturing an execution drug in that country. That caused a shortage of the drug throughout the United States.

Ohio and Oklahoma have already switched to use of pentobarbital in executions.

Another Texas inmate, Cleve Foster, had been scheduled to be the first person in the state executed using the new drug last month. But Foster received a temporary stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court over concerns his state-appointed lawyers were ineffective.

Kerr was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. on Tuesday, said Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

"To the state of Texas: I am an innocent man," were among Kerr's final words, according to Lyons. "Never trust a court-appointed attorney. I am ready, warden."

Kerr was the third prisoner to be put to death this year in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state.

Texas executed 17 people in 2010, down from 24 in 2009.

Source: Reuters, May 3, 2011

Help spread this important message:

Lundbeck: YES! OUR DRUG KILLS

Already 6 human beings executed with Lundbeck's Pentobarbital. Demand Lundbeck Withdraw Execution Drug: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/demand-lundbeck-withdraw-execution-drug/

Please sign and tell Danish company to stop helping the death penalty business in the USA! This petition is international and open to all! Please select your country, sign and share widely!
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Texas prepares to execute their first prisoner using pentobarbital. Drug-maker Lundbeck looks on in silence.

Cary Kerr is due to be executed in Texas in less than 48 hours using a drug manufactured by Danish pharmaceutical company, Lundbeck. Texas Department of Corrections used to operate the busiest death chamber in the country, but recent shortages of lethal injection drugs forced the state to slow down its execution rate. The switch in lethal injection protocol to Lundbeck-made pentobarbital will see a return to executing form, only now the machinery of death will be powered by Lundbeck’s drugs.

The new protocol was hastily adopted by the Texas DOC without medical consultation or expert analysis. It is experimental and considered to be extremely dangerous. A recent report published by Northwestern and ACLU has shown that even animals would not be allowed to be euthanized using this combination of drugs because the risk of a torturous death is too high. Cary Kerr, who has been on death row for nearly a decade, says that he is less afraid of dying, than the way in which is going to die. His German penpal, Nicole, who has gone over to Texas to spend Kerr’s last days by his side, reports that he feels like ‘a guinea-pig; or worse than a guinea-pig, because they wouldn’t be allowed to do this to an animal.’

Nicole has written a letter to Lundbeck on Kerr’s behalf, urging them to do something to stop their drugs being used to ‘torture and kill [her] friend’. A simple statement from the company scientists saying that the untested cocktail is dangerous and should not be used on a human being could do a great deal to grant this man a stay. But thus far, Lundbeck have heeded none of the appeals to do even such small things to try to help the people scheduled to be killed with their drugs.

Doctors, lawyers, human rights organisations, penpals, and prisoners have all written to Lundbeck. There are simple ways that Lundbeck could change the situation and prevent their drugs being used to kill people. Their silence on these issues, their continuing refusals to take meaningful action and their lack of transparency about their US business dealings are starting to cast a shadow of doubt over the good intentions of the company. All this at a time when the company’s reputation is already on the rocks. A report on Denmark’s main news station revealed on Sunday that Lundbeck had manufactured anti-depressives for children which had led to a number of suicides. The drugs were marketed against FDA regulations and Lundbeck’s partner company, Forest Laboratories, was forced to pay off 54 families as well as a 313 billion dollar fine to the US authorities.

Nearly two-thirds of all executing states now plan to use Lundbeck’s pentobarbital to execute their prisoners.

Reprieve’s Investigator, Maya Foa, said: "Lundbeck are doing themselves no favours. They have not been honest with the public or their shareholders, and there’ll be a price to pay as the truth comes out."

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

Contact Lundbeck,  send an email (contact@lundbeck.com) and/or sign an online petition demanding Lundbeck's widthdrawal of execution drug.

Source: Reprieve, May 2, 2011

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European death drugs to be used in two US executions next week

Drugs supplied by European pharmaceutical companies are set to be used to execute two US prisoners on the 3rd and 6th of May.

Anaesthetics from Denmark-headquartered Lundbeck and UK-based Dream Pharma will be used in the respective executions by lethal injection of Cary Kerr in Texas and Jeffrey Motts in South Carolina.

Several states are in possession of large supplies of sodium thiopental, the anaesthetic due to be used in the execution of Jeffrey Motts, which they were able to acquire from the UK in the delay before the British government imposed export controls. There are serious concerns that the drug, bought through back-channels from a tiny firm in an office in a driving school in Acton, may be faulty – leaving prisoners in severe pain during their executions. Three botched executions using the drug have already been carried out.

Meanwhile, Lundbeck continues to supply the barbiturate pentobarbital through a facility based in the USA. The barbiturate was not intended for use in lethal injections and has never been clinically tested for the purpose. The new protocol hastily adopted by Texas (in less than three weeks, without scientific or medical consultation) is recognised to be particularly dangerous. It calls for pentobarbital followed by pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride: a combination so risky and inhumane that vets explicitly outlaw it in the practice of animal euthanasia.

The execution of Cary Kerr on Tuesday will be the first in Texas using this lethal injection cocktail, and, if the state Department of Corrections (which boasts the busiest execution chamber in the USA) has its way, the first of many.

Death rows in the US have been looking abroad for execution drugs ever since the only domestic supplier ended production of sodium thiopental, the first stage in the (until recently) widely-used three drug execution cocktail.

Appalled by the prospect of complicity in US executions, Governments and pharmaceutical firms in Britain, Italy, Austria and India have found ways to prevent the use of their drugs for killing prisoners. Lundbeck has failed to take similar action and the Danish Government appears incapable or unwilling to exert any effective pressure.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said: “With two executions looming, Lundbeck should be doing everything in their power to mitigate the damage done in their name. Delays are fatal, as the execution of Jeffrey Motts using British drugs on Friday will show. There are many simple and common mechanisms Lundbeck could use to prevent their drugs being used to kill people. Their continued reluctance to employ them is shameful.”

Source: Reprieve, April 27, 2011

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U.S.: States moving quickly to switch execution drug

San Quentin's new
death chamber

Nearly 2/3 of the 16 states with active death chambers are switching to an alternative sedative for execution -- even as the drug's manufacturer argues against its use in capital punishment and some European countries push to ban the export of such drugs.

10 states, including Texas, have switched to pentobarbital or are considering a switch as part of their 3-drug methods, according to a survey of all death penalty states by The Associated Press.

At issue is a shortage of sodium thiopental, a sedative that states used for more than 3 decades until its only U.S. manufacturer stopped making it in 2009 and dropped plans to resume production this year.

The shortage forced several states to scramble to find new supplies, and executions were temporarily delayed in Arizona, California, Georgia and Oklahoma. States swapped supplies of sodium thiopental or looked overseas, to England, India and even Pakistan.

Several states turned to England and obtained doses of sodium thiopental not approved for medical use in this country by the FDA.

But that source dried up after the British government banned the drug's export for use in executions and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began seizing supplies from Georgia and other states over questions of whether they broke the law to get the drug.

The 10 states that have switched to pentobarbital or are considering a switch are among 16 that held executions in the past 3 years or have executions scheduled this year.

Pentobarbital is used as a sedative in some surgeries, as a hypnotic for short-term treatment of insomnia and as a way to control certain types of seizures.

Anti-death-penalty groups want its Danish manufacturer, Lundbeck Inc., to write clauses into contracts with pharmaceutical distributors to ban its use in executions.

Lundbeck, which strongly opposes the use of its drug for capital punishment, says such clauses would be impractical because of the way drugs are distributed.

"We don't control the full supply chain and how it gets into the hands of the end user," said Lundbeck's U.S. spokeswoman, Sally Benjamin Young.

Once a drugmaker sells its initial supplies to wholesalers, the drugs are shipped to a variety of retailers nationwide that can resell them to licensed medical professionals.

Texas, the country's most active death penalty state, obtained all three of its execution drugs from Besse Medical of suburban Cincinnati, a large pharmaceutical distributor.

The company says it has no way to determine what its customers do with its products.

Source: Associated Press, April 22, 2011

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Danes try to stop US using drug for death penalty

Lundbeck sells killing drug

Denmark's foreign minister says she will urge U.S. states such as Texas and Ohio to stop using a drug in lethal injections that is produced by a Danish company.

Lene Espersen says she cannot take direct action against the company since the drug, pentobarbital, is not exported from Denmark but produced by a plant in the U.S. state of Kansas that is owned by Denmark's Lundbeck A/S.

Pentobarbital is a sedative with a range of medical uses, including the treatment of epileptic seizures and other conditions which require some form of sedation.

Since late last year, it has been used in the U.S. for lethal injections. Denmark, as is the case with the rest of Europe, is against the death penalty.

Espersen has been asked by a left-wing opposition group if Denmark could find a way of stopping some U.S. states from using the drug in its executions.

"I have no possibility to take direct action at American states' use of the product for executions, but I will also contact these states through the Danish Embassy in Washington with a call to cease using pentobarbital," Espersen said in a letter posted on Parliament's Web site April 12.

In Denmark, lawmakers can put written questions to government members who must reply in writing.

"I find it deeply regrettable that a legal medical product is used for executions," she added in her reply to the small, left-wing opposition Red-Green Alliance.

Espersen could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Copenhagen-based Lundbeck has found itself in a difficult position as several U.S. states have switched to pentobarbital for lethal injections to replace another chemical - sodium thiopental - which is no longer available.

Pentobarbital has been used to execute prisoners in Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. Fellow U.S. states Mississippi and Arizona are also considering switching to the drug for lethal injections.

Lundbeck has written letters to U.S. prison authorities asking them not to use pentobarbital for lethal injections, but so far to no avail.

The pharmaceutical company, whose best-sellers include drugs for the treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders, is under pressure from human rights groups to take stronger action, such as rewriting distribution contracts with clauses prohibiting sales of pentobarbital to U.S. prisons.

Lundbeck has rejected that idea, saying it would be impossible for distributors to track how every vial is used.

The company has said it sells about 50 million doses of pentobarbital a year, but has declined to give any breakdown of sales. Pentobarbital, it has said, accounts for a very small percentage of overall sales.

Source: AP, April 14, 2011

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British government bans export of three more lethal injection drugs for US executions

Reprieve welcomes the announcement by the Department for Business that it is introducing controls on the export to the US of drugs used in lethal injections.

Business Minister Mark Prisk has written to Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, to confirm that the Government will put in place measures to stop the export to the US of three drugs for use in executions.

The move follows the Government’s previous action in placing an emergency export control on sodium thiopental – an anaesthetic which had been purchased by US prisons from the UK for use in lethal injections – following legal action by Reprieve.

The UK Government now intends to control exports to the US of:

- pancuronium bromide – a muscle relaxant and the second of a three-drug execution ‘cocktail’ used by many states

- potassium chloride – the third part of the ‘cocktail’, used to stop the heart

- sodium pentobarbital – a barbiturate more commonly used to put down animals but seeing increasing use in US executions as supplies of sodium thiopental become scarce

Reprieve's Director Clive Stafford Smith said: '"Britain has now taken the lead in ending complicity in the US death penalty, which is very welcome. Since the US executing states are now turning to a Danish company, Lundbeck, to kill people, we must hope that the UK can persuade our EU partners to take a similar line."

Source: Reprieve, April 14, 2011

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Danish company won't withdraw US execution drug

Danish company rejects capital punishment but won't withdraw US execution drug

A Danish company that unwittingly has become a key supplier of an execution drug in the U.S. says it's not going to withdraw or restrict it, even though it objects to the chemical being "misused" for capital punishment.

Lundbeck A/S is doing "all we can" to dissuade U.S. states from using pentobarbital for lethal injections, but won't pull it from the U.S. market, CEO Ulf Wiinberg told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Pentobarbital is a sedative with a range of medical uses, including treatment of epileptic seizures. It also is used to euthanize animals.

"Financially speaking this is not an important product for us and we thought about whether we should withdraw it and the reaction we got from doctors was that they didn't want us to withdraw the product," Wiinberg said at the drug maker's annual shareholders meeting in Copenhagen.

As the only company making the drug, Lundbeck found itself in an awkward position as death penalty states started switching to pentobarbital for lethal injections to replace another chemical that's no longer readily available.

Pentobarbital has already been used to execute prisoners in Ohio and Oklahoma. The first execution in Texas using pentobarbital is scheduled for next week. Mississippi and Arizona are also considering switching to pentobarbital for lethal injections.

"One of our products is being misused," Wiinberg said. "When we heard about this, we went out and took a very clear position, saying we are against the misuse of our product and that we, as an organization, made it clear that we are against death penalty."

Lundbeck A/S has written letters to prison authorities in U.S. states asking them not to use pentobarbital for lethal injections, but to no avail so far.

The company is now coming under pressure from human rights groups opposed to the death penalty to take stronger action, such as rewriting distribution contracts with clauses prohibiting sales of pentobarbital to U.S. prisons.

Lundbeck rejected that idea, saying it would be impossible for distributors to follow up on how every vial is used. Lundbeck says it sells about 50 million doses of pentobarbital a year.

"We don't believe it will work and we will not do it," Wiinberg told AP.

Related article: "Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections", Reprieve, March 25, 2011

Contact Lundbeck,  send an email (contact@lundbeck.com) and/or sign an online petition demanding Lundbeck's widthdrawal of execution drug.

Source: Associated Press, March 30, 2011

Danes won't block execution drug

A Danish company that unwittingly has become a key supplier of an execution drug in the U.S. says it's not going to withdraw or restrict it, even though it objects to the chemical being "misused" for capital punishment.

Lundbeck A/S is doing "all we can" to dissuade U.S. states from using pentobarbital for lethal injections, but won't pull it from the U.S. market, CEO Ulf Wiinberg told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Pentobarbital is a sedative with a range of medical uses, including treatment of epileptic seizures. It also is used to euthanize animals.

"Financially speaking this is not an important product for us and we thought about whether we should withdraw it and the reaction we got from doctors was that they didn't want us to withdraw the product," Wiinberg said at the drug maker's annual shareholders meeting in Copenhagen.

As the only company making the drug, Lundbeck found itself in an awkward position as death penalty states started switching to pentobarbital for lethal injections to replace another chemical that's no longer readily available.

Pentobarbital has already been used to execute prisoners in Ohio and Oklahoma. The first execution in Texas using pentobarbital is scheduled for next week. Mississippi and Arizona are also considering switching to pentobarbital for lethal injections.

"One of our products is being misused," Wiinberg said. "When we heard about this, we went out and took a very clear position, saying we are against the misuse of our product and that we, as an organization, made it clear that we are against death penalty."

Lundbeck A/S has written letters to prison authorities in U.S. states asking them not to use pentobarbital for lethal injections, but to no avail so far.

The company is now coming under pressure from human rights groups opposed to the death penalty to take stronger action, such as rewriting distribution contracts with clauses prohibiting sales of pentobarbital to U.S. prisons.

Lundbeck rejected that idea, saying it would be impossible for distributors to follow up on how every vial is used. Lundbeck says it sells about 50 million doses of pentobarbital a year.

"We don't believe it will work and we will not do it," Wiinberg told the AP.

London-based human rights group Reprieve called the decision "disappointing and cowardly."

"We had hoped for a more courageous response, but apparently Lundbeck would rather preserve their U.S. commercial interests than prisoners' lives," Reprieve investigator Maya Foa said in an email to the AP.

The sudden demand for pentobarbital comes amid a shortage of sodium thiopental, another sedative that is part of the three-drug lethal injection cocktail used by nearly all 34 states that implement death penalty.

The manufacturer of that drug, Hospira Inc., said in January it would cease production, sending states scrambling for ways to fill their inventories to keep their executions on track. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration this month seized Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental over questions about how it imported the drug from Britain.

Hospira quit production when lawmakers in Italy, home of the company's new factory, demanded assurances that the substance would not be used in executions.

Authorities in Denmark, which also opposes the death penalty, are not expected to intervene against Lundbeck, because the plant where it makes pentobarbital is in Kansas. So death penalty opponents are hoping Lundbeck's shareholders will apply pressure on management to take action, though there was little discussion about the issue Wednesday at Lundbeck's steel-and-glass headquarters in the Danish capital.

"It is of course an unpleasant case but Lundbeck has not done anything wrong," said Niels Aage Larsen, who represents a Danish shareholders association with 5,000 members. "Like a producer of knives, they cannot know how and where their products are being used."

Among Lundbeck's institutional investors are Scandinavian pension funds, including oil-rich Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, which at the end of 2010 held a 0.68 percent stake in Lundbeck worth 150 million Norwegian kroner (about $25 million).

The fund has strict ethical guidelines banning investments in tobacco companies and some weapons firms. The guidelines don't specifically address companies associated with capital punishment, but "it can't be excluded" that such companies would come under scrutiny, said Gro Nystuen, who chairs the fund's ethical council.

She wouldn't say whether the council is reviewing the fund's stake in Lundbeck because such deliberations are confidential until a decision is made.

"We are well aware of the case and the company," she added.

Source: Associated Press, March 30, 2011
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