Mississippi executes Rodney Gray

Rodney Gray

PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man convicted of the shotgun slaying of an elderly woman whose body was left near a rural bridge has been executed.

Corrections officials said 38-year-old Rodney Gray was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. CDT Tuesday at the state penitentiary at Parchman.

Gray was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing 79-year-old Grace Blackwell of Louin, whose body was found Aug. 15, 1994, at the end of a Newton County bridge. Blackwell died from a shotgun wound to the head.

Blackwell was last seen after cashing a $1,200 check at the woman's bank and her car was later found behind a service station. In court records, prosecutors said Blackwell's blood was found on Gray's clothing.

Gray was visited by his mother Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last appeal.

Source: AP, May 17, 2011

MDOC: Gray resigned to die but says he's innocent

PARCHMAN — As his execution draws nearer this afternoon, death row inmate Rodney Gray is still proclaiming his innocence.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps told the media at a 4:45 p.m. briefing that Gray is maintaining he is not guilty of any of the crimes that led to his death sentence.

But the lead prosecutor in the case has said the evidence against Gray in the 1994 kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder of 79-year-old Grace Blackwell in Newton County left no doubt about his guilt.

Resigned to his fate, Gray, 38, has remained talkative and had made at least two phone calls today, one to a friend and one to his spiritual adviser, Epps said. His mother visited him from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Two of his attorneys also have visited him.

MDOC Chaplain Willie Bays was visiting with the condemned man late today.

Gray doesn't want any family member to view his execution. He has asked Bays to witness his execution after his own spiritual adviser didn't make the trip.

For his last meal, Gray made no special request and was given the same food as other inmates, but Epps said Gray ate only one bite of the chicken fried steak.

“He said he has made peace with the Lord,” Epps said of conversations he had with Gray today. “He has been reading the Bible.”

Source: ClarionLedger.com, May 17, 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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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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3 executions at Parchman, Mississippi, set for May; more possible

The 1st execution this year is set for Tuesday, and on successive Tuesdays for the next 2 weeks 2 more inmates are scheduled to die by lethal injection.

And the 3 may not be the only death row inmates executed this year.

"There could be more this year, but no way to tell how many more," said Jan Schaefer, spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office. On Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court set Robert Simon Jr.'s execution for May 24.

The court had previously set a May 10 execution date for Benny Joe Stevens and a May 17 execution date for Rodney Gray.

In May last year, the state had its 1st back-to-back executions when Gerald Holland and Paul Woodward were put to death. Also, the state executed Joseph Daniel Burns in July.

The state Supreme Court set the stage for the 3rd execution this month when it ruled against Simon in a motion from his attorney alleging that Simon is incompetent for execution after he hit his head in prison.

Simon's attorney, T.H. Freeland IV of Oxford, had filed the motion April 1 in response to Attorney General Jim Hood's request for an April 20 execution date.

The court on Thursday said there was no sufficient evidence showing Simon has a mental condition.

Freeland couldn't be reached Friday. He didn't describe how Simon hit his head, but said in court papers Simon can't understand his case and has trouble carrying on conversations.

Freeland wanted the state Supreme Court to send the case back to a Quitman County judge for a hearing on Simon's competency.

Simon, 47, was sentenced to death for the killings of Carl Parker, his wife, Bobbie Jo, and their son, Gregory, on Feb. 2, 1990.

He was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Charlotte Parker, the slain couple's 9-year-old daughter.

The killings occurred a few hours after the family had returned to their rural Quitman County home from church services.

Starting with Simon, the death row inmates will be executed with a new lethal injection cocktail.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said MDOC will use the drug pentobarbital in its 3-drug lethal injection instead of sodium thiopental, the commonly used drug in prior executions across the country.

A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental has prompted some states to look for an alternative.

Gray, Stevens and Simon through their civil attorney had challenged in court that MDOC failed to properly publicize the change in regulations to switch to a new drug as required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

Last month, Hinds County Circuit Judge Bill Gowan rejected the challenge. And Thursday, the state Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of Gowan's ruling.

"I don't think at this moment there is anything else we can do," said Jackson lawyer David Neil McCarty, who represents the inmates on that issue.

"It's frustrating because we think we can win on this issue, but it will only happen after the executions," he said.

Stevens, now 52, was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing four people in Marion County's Foxworth community.

Killed were Glenda Lee Reid, 38, Stevens' former wife; Wesley Lee Reid, 38, her husband; Dylan Reid, her 11-year-old son; and Heath Pounds, 10, a neighbor's son who apparently was spending the night with Dylan.

Gray, now 38, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1994 rape and murder of Grace Blackwell of Louin, 79.

Blackwell was found shot multiple times in Newton County. She last had been seen withdrawing a large amount of money from her bank.

Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger, May 7, 2011

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Pending U.S. Executions (as of 05/06/11)

Please note that these dates are only tentative.

Execution dates known or thought to be considered SERIOUS are marked with a *.The designation indicates that an execution is considered more likely to be carried out.

Please note that this designation should in no way be construed as absolute. Stays can be granted or denied at the very last moment prior to an execution.

A name with no * designation may simply mean that not enough information is currently available to know whether the execution date is serious. In other words, please DO NOT automatically equate the fact that a name with no * designation means that his/her assigned execution date is not serious. It might, in fact, be (very) serious.

2011

May

6* Jeffrey Motts, South Carolina

10* Benny Joe Stevens, Mississippi

17* Daniel Bedford, Ohio

17* Rodney Gray, Mississippi

19* Jason Williams, Alabama

25* Donald Beaty, Arizona

June

1* Gayland Bradford, Texas

14* Shawn Hawkins, Ohio

14* Carey Dean Moore, Nebraska

15* John Balentine, Texas

16* Lee Andrew Taylor, Texas

16* Eddie Powell, Alabama

21* Milton Mathis, Texas

22* Frank Williams Jr., Arkansas

July

7* Humberto Leal, Texas

12* Marcel Williams, Arkansas

19* Kenneth Smith, Ohio

20* Mark Stroman, Texas

August

10* Martin Robles, Texas

16* Brett Hartman, Ohio

30* Ivan Cantu, Texas

September

13 Joel Schmeiderer, Tennessee

15* Duane Buck, Texas

20* Billy Slagle, Ohio

27 David Jordan, Tennessee

October

4 John Henretta, Tennessee

11 H-R Hester, Tennessee

18* Joseph Murphy, Ohio

November

15* Reginald Brooks, Ohio

2012

January

18* Charles Lorraine, Ohio

February

22* Michael Webb, Ohio

Click here for additional information on scheduled executions in Texas on the TDCJ website.

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Mississippi: Faith leaders call to end death penalty

Leaders of Muslim, Jewish and Christian congregations gathered Thursday at the Capitol to call for an end to the death penalty in Mississippi.

Death penalty supporter Ann Pace of Jackson, meanwhile, held pictures of her daughter, who she said died at the hands of a serial killer.

The main point of contention between the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference and Pace is whether the death penalty effectively deters crime, but the issue also hinges on inequity in the criminal justice system and religious principles.

“We face the real possibility of three state-sanctioned executions within the next month,” said the Episcopal Rev. Carol Borne Spencer. “The organization thus felt that the time was now for us to ask our state leaders to find new ways to deal with one of the largest societal dilemmas of our time, that is how to deal with heinous criminal actions of murder and violence and still hold people accountable in ways that do not require the killing of a person."

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Supreme Court set execution dates for 2 convicted killers, and Attorney General Jim Hood has requested an execution date for a 3rd.

The religious conference, which grew out of the 1960s civil rights movement, asked Thursday for crime victim support. But members said executions only create new victims — the families of executed criminals. Isolating criminals is better than condemning them to death, members said.

Pace, whose daughter Murray Pace was slain by reputed south Louisiana serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in May 2002, disagrees.

Lee, 43, sits on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for Pace’s murder. Murray was killed at the age of 22, 1 week after graduating with an MBA from Louisiana State University.

Lee is suspected of killing 7 south Louisiana women between 1998 and 2003, but Pace said he has not yet been put to death because Louisiana state law allows too many appeals.

“Even though the case is a DNA case, his DNA in 7 murders, and it’s been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court twice, Louisiana still provides for a system called post-conviction relief that can go on for years and years and years, and it made sense before forensic science. It does not make sense now,” said Pace.

She cited a series of studies in the early 2000s finding that each execution prevents between 3 and 18 slayings. The studies have been widely disseminated by pro-death penalty advocates but widely criticized for technical and conceptual errors by those who oppose execution.

“I am here for those three to 18 additional victims,” Pace said. “I think abolishing the death penalty is idealistic, sounds good, feels good to support, but it does not protect life, it does not protect us, and I think our most important moral obligation in our life is to protect ourselves, our children, and our community, and I think that the death penalty does in fact do that."

In addition to the debate over deterrence, the Capitol press conference brought up issues of social equality and faith.

Okolo Rashid of Jackson's International Museum of Muslim Cultures signed the MRLC's call for a moratorium. She said her faith would allow her to support the death penalty if the system did not disproportionately execute black men.

Another MRLC member invoked the symbolism of the Christian day of Good Friday, which marks the day Jesus Christ was crucified.

“We know that Jesus Christ would not want the death penalty for anyone, having suffered himself at the hands of the state,” said the Catholic Bishop Joseph N. Latino of Jackson.

Set to be executed May 10 is Benny Joe Stevens, now 52, who was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing his ex-wife and her husband, his 11-year-old son and his son's 10-year-old friend.

Meanwhile, state officials have set a May 17 execution date for Rodney Gray, now 38, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1994 rape and murder of 79-year-old Grace Blackwell of Louin. Blackwell, who had last been seen withdrawing a large amount of money from her bank, was found shot multiple times in Newton County.

Robert Simon Jr. was sentenced to death for the killings of 3 members of a Quitman County family, but his attorneys say a fall has rendered him incompetent for execution. Hood had earlier asked for an April 20 execution date.

Source: Associated Press, April 23, 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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Mississippi ‘likely’ to use new execution drug

Mississippi will likely switch to a different drug for its next execution due to a nationwide shortage of one of the chemicals it has used in the past, authorities said Tuesday.

Attorney General Jim Hood said Mississippi “most likely will” use pentobarbital in the state’s next execution.

Mississippi has used a 3-drug mixture for its lethal injections in the past, but one of those chemicals, an anesthetic called sodium thiopental, is in short supply.

Sodium thiopental is one of the most common execution drugs used in the U.S., but the nationwide shortage has forced states to consider other options. Some states have already decided to use pentobarbital, a surgical sedative that is commonly used to euthanize animals.

Source: Associated Press, March 23, 2011

Miss. AG: State ‘Likely’ to Use New Execution Drug

Mississippi will likely switch to a different drug for its next execution due to a nationwide shortage of one of the chemicals it has used in the past, authorities said Tuesday.

Attorney General Jim Hood said Mississippi "most likely will" use pentobarbital in the state's next execution. Hood asked the Mississippi Supreme Court this week to set an execution date for Robert Simon Jr. The court didn't immediately act on the request.

Mississippi has used a 3-drug mixture for its lethal injections in the past, but one of those chemicals, an anesthetic called sodium thiopental, is in short supply. Sodium thiopental is one of the most common execution drugs used in the U.S., but the nationwide shortage has forced states to consider other options.

Some states have already decided to use pentobarbital, a surgical sedative that is commonly used to euthanize animals.

Texas and Oklahoma recently announced the switch to pentobarbital, and plan to use it along with 2 other drugs. Ohio became the 1st state to use pentobarbital alone when it executed an inmate with the drug March 10.

Mississippi officials said they're still working out the details of handling executions with pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental.

Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth said state statute "provides that a lethal quantity of an ultra-short-acting barbiturate or other similar drug in combination with a chemical paralytic agent will be used."

Hood said Mississippi is still trying to get sodium thiopental from other states, but so far that hasn't happened.

"We're still looking into using this other substance (sodium thiopental), but we aren't really confident that we're going to get some," he said.

Hood said his staff is studying other states' use of pentobarbital in hopes that Mississippi won't get bogged down in legal challenges if it begins using the drug. Court rulings in favor of pentobarbital in other states could be used as the basis for legal arguments in Mississippi.

It's not clear how soon Mississippi's next execution will happen. Hood filed the request Monday for an April 20 execution date for Simon, who was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of a married couple and their 12-year-old son. The U.S. Supreme Court had denied Simon's appeal earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, the shortage of sodium thiopental is raising legal questions in other states.

Attorneys in Kentucky, Georgia and Arizona want the U.S. Justice Department to investigate how those states got supplies of sodium thiopental. Drug Enforcement Administration officials said about a week ago they had seized Georgia's supply of the drug. A public defender for a Kentucky death row inmate also wants the Justice Department to determine if the state's contacts with a pharmaceutical company in India were handled properly.

Just weeks before Mississippi's last executions - the 1st back-to-back executions in nearly 50 years - officials were scrambling to find enough sodium thiopental to carry out the sentences. The executions were carried out as scheduled, but only because the state found a pharmacy willing to give it the drug.

Hood wrote a letter to Hospira Inc. last April, asking if he could do anything to help expedite a shipment of sodium thiopental because the state didn't have enough for 2 executions, scheduled the following month.

The company declined, saying it doesn't support the use of its products in capital punishment and that manufacturing had halted in 2009 because of "manufacturing difficulties."

The Mississippi Department of Corrections eventually got the drug from a pharmacist who doesn't want to be identified, officials said.

Source: Associated Press, March 22, 2011
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US Supreme Court won't hear Mississippi death row inmate's claims of 'ineffective' lawyer

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal from Mississippi death row inmate Robert Simon Jr., who claims he could have avoided a death sentence had his sentencing jury been told of his abusive childhood.

Mississippi authorities quickly sought an execution date for Simon, who was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of a married couple and their 12-year-old son.

A federal judge in Mississippi dismissed Simon's ineffective counsel claims in 2008. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision last fall. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case without comment.

The Mississippi attorney general's office asked the state's Supreme Court on Monday to set the execution date.

Simon was sentenced to death for the killings of Carl Parker, his wife, Bobbie Jo, and their son, Gregory, on Feb. 2, 1990. They were killed a few hours after returning to their rural Quitman County home from church services.

He also was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of Charlotte Parker, the slain couple's 9-year-old daughter.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Simon's conviction and in 2004 denied Simon's arguments that he had found evidence to justify a new trial.

Authorities said the Parkers' bodies were pulled from their burning house. All 4 had been shot, but an autopsy showed Charlotte died from smoke inhalation.

Carl Parker's truck was found in Clarksdale. After an investigation, Simon and Anthony Carr were arrested in Clarksdale. Carr was convicted on 4 counts of capital murder and sentenced to die.

Simon had alleged in court documents that had his attorney looked into his background, he would have found a history of abuse at the hands of Simon's father. Simon claimed his counsel's failure to uncover this history of abuse resulted in a weak challenge to the prosecution's case for a death sentence.

Source: Associated Press, March 22, 2011

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U.S.: 13 states including Alabama ask Justice Department aid in obtaining scarce execution drug

The Justice Department says it's reviewing a request by 13 states looking for the government's help obtaining supplies of a scarce execution drug.

States are scrambling to find enough sodium thiopental after its sole U.S. manufacturer ceased production and some overseas supplies dried up.

The states asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jan. 25 for help identifying sources for the drug or making federal supplies available to states. The states that signed the letter are: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia and Tennessee have sought supplies in England, while Nebraska purchased a batch from India.

Justice Department spokeswoman Alisa Finelli says the agency will review the letter.

Source: Associated Press, Feb. 8, 2011

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Shortage of execution drug leaves Mississippi looking for replacement

Just weeks before Mississippi had back-to-back executions for the 1st time in nearly 50 years, officials were scrambling to find enough sodium thiopental to carry out the sentences.

The executions were carried out as scheduled, but the difficulty in finding sodium thiopental shows Mississippi is not immune from a nationwide shortage of the drug.

State Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said last week the state is looking for a replacement for sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs used in Mississippi's executions.

"We don't have a choice. We're wearing out our options," Epps said.

Hospira Inc., the only U.S. supplier of sodium thiopental, stopped producing it in 2009.

The company recently announced that it won't resume production.

Epps and the Mississippi attorney general's office said last week that state officials are looking for a different drug for executions, but using a new drug creates the potential for a wave of legal challenges to the state's method of execution.

Source: Sun Herald, January 31, 2011

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Companies won't sell Kentucky lethal injection drug

Amid a nationwide shortage of a lethal injection drug, documents obtained under a freedom of information request show two pharmaceutical companies declined to sell Kentucky a supply of the sedative. 

The state e-mails obtained by The Associated Press show one firm, KRS Global Biotechnology of Boca Raton, Fla., explained it's refusal by saying there was no doctor involved in the purchase of sodium thiopental, even though Kentucky law bars physicians from being involved in administering executions. 

No reason was given in the e-mail traffic between state officials and pharmacists for a canceled order from the other company, Spectrum Chemical and Laboratory Products of Gardenia, Calif. A Spectrum official told the AP the ordered was scrapped when it sold that part of its business last year. 

At least 7 other states that use sodium thiopental for lethal injections have had trouble in recent months finding enough of the drug, whose main U.S. manufacturer has cited supply problems. The shortage has not delayed any executions in Kentucky because they have been on hold since a judge's order in September over an unrelated issue. 

The Kentucky e-mails are the first public record of companies declining to sell the drug to states for executions. 

They show a massive search for any stock of unexpired sodium thiopental, with Kentucky prison officials contacting more than two dozen states, more than a half-dozen chemical companies and even the federal Bureau of Prisons. While Kentucky in June gave Ohio 3 of the 6 grams needed to carry out an execution there, prison officials found no state willing to share their limited supply of the drug with Kentucky. 

"I am beginning to think drug companies and suppliers are not real happy to have to supply us for this use," Phil Parker, warden of the Kentucky State Penitentiary that houses the state's death chamber, wrote in a July e-mail. 

Kentucky started searching for sodium thiopental in January 2010, about 6 weeks after the state Attorney General's office asked the governor to set execution dates in 3 cases. 

By June, it had focused on Spectrum Chemical as the only company with the drug in stock. The state placed an order with Spectrum on June 14 order for 50 grams of the fast-acting sedative, enough to conduct eight executions. But in July, Spectrum called off the deal. 

State officials, in e-mails, said the cancellation came after Spectrum found out the customer was the Kentucky Department of Corrections, not a hospital or clinic, as listed on the department's federal license allowing the drug purchase. 

A pharmacist at Fredonia Pharmacy Corner, an outlet 15 miles from the prison that the state used to buy other drugs, offered to order the sodium thiopental for Kentucky as long as he could tack on a 15 percent markup. Spectrum rejected the order, saying they don't sell to pharmacies. 

The state penitentiary's Parker speculated in an e-mail that Spectrum figured out what the drug would be used for and the link between the pharmacy and the prison. 

"Bottom line is, they are not going to sell to anyone or any entity associated with us," Parker wrote on July 19 to Kentucky Corrections Commissioner LaDonna Thompson. 

Brad Ashby, a former pharmacist at Fredonia Pharmacy Corner, told Parker in an e-mail that Spectrum initially had no issues with selling the drug to him. 

"I made it clear to Spectrum on Friday that we were a pharmacy and they did not say that they couldn't sell to us," Ashby wrote on July 19. "In fact, 'pharmacy' is a choice on their application." 

Ashby declined to comment last week for this story. 

Julie Berryman, president of Spectrum's West Coast division and general counsel, told the AP the company takes no stand on the drug being used for executions. Berryman said the contract with the Kentucky prisons was part of the company whose business was sold to another firm last year and that sale meant the order had to be canceled. 

"We're a business," Berryman told The Associated Press. "We would never decline a sale for political reasons." 

Kentucky then negotiated a $16,000 order with KRS-GBT in September to cover enough of the drug for 6 executions, but the deal fell through because the company insisted that a doctor take part in the acquisition, said Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice Cabinet. 

Having a doctor participate in buying the drug could have violated state law, which forbids physicians from having a role in an execution. 

"The Department of Corrections couldn't comply with that request," Brislin said. 

KRS-GBT did not return messages from the AP seeking comment. 

The 2 companies' refusal to sell sodium thiopental to Kentucky set off a scramble by the Department of Corrections to get some of the dwindling national supply of the drug before the state's remaining stock went bad in October. 

As the search wore on, Parker became less and less optimistic that Kentucky would be able to find the drug, calling Spectrum "our last, best hope" and that he was "at wits end" because no one could say when the chemical would be produced again. 

To distance the purchaser of the drugs from the state, Parker suggested hiring a pharmacist not previously associated with the state to call and order the drug. Prison officials also looked into having the Kentucky State Reformatory, which serves as the prison system's medical center, order the chemicals. 

Attempts by the pharmacist at the Kentucky State Reformatory to purchase the drug were unsuccessful and the plan to hire a pharmacist on contract never came to fruition. 

The primary producer of sodium thiopental, Hospira, Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., has blamed a national shortage on a lack of raw materials. Hospira and the Food and Drug Administration have said the product should be available early this year. 

Sodium thiopental has been used as an anesthetic in surgery, but many hospitals have switched to propofol to render patients unconscious, leaving very few medical uses for sodium thiopental. 

Officials with Hospira have written to at least two states - Ohio and Mississippi - saying the drug is produced with medical uses, not executions, in mind. 

"As such, we do not support the use of any of our products in capital punishment procedures," Dr. Kees Gioenhout, vice president of clinical research and development, wrote to Ohio prison officials in March. 

While Kentucky law prohibits doctors from taking an active role in executions, there's no similar ban on pharmacists. The American Pharmacist Association, based in Washington, D.C., is opposed to any law or regulation mandating or prohibiting pharmacists from taking part in the lethal injection process, said association spokeswoman Michelle Fritts. 

Kentucky returned to the Fredonia pharmacy to obtain another lethal injection ingredient, potassium chloride. The state got a 3rd part of the lethal brew, pancuronium bromide, from Henry Schein, a Melville, N.Y., company that sells pharmaceuticals and medical products. 

State records obtained by the AP show Kentucky has 500 mg of pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, that expires in November and another 150 mg that expires in March 2012. 

Kentucky also has 720 milliequivalents of potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest, that expires in February and another 2,250 that expires in February 2012. 

Kentucky's stock of 6 grams of sodium thiopental expired before the state could carry out an execution. A Sept. 16 date for condemned inmate Gregory L. Wilson, convicted in 1988 of kidnapping, raping and killing a woman in northern Kentucky, passed when a judge halted all executions in the state over concerns about how Kentucky evaluated an inmate's mental health before execution. 

Source: Associated Press, January 19, 2011

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Ohio only state to execute more in 2010

Ted Strickland

Ohio continued to buck a national trend on the death penalty this year, ranking second in the nation to Texas in the number of executions.

Ohio had eight men lethally injected, making it the only state to increase executions in 2010, according to the annual report by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C.

The total would have been higher had Gov. Ted Strickland not spared the lives of two convicted killers: Kevin Keith of Crawford County and Sidney Cornwell of Mahoning County.

Strickland, who will leave office Jan. 9, said yesterday that he feels "terrible" that Ohio was the only state in which executions rose this year. "It's one of the responsibilities of governing that I won't mind giving up," he said.

But Strickland also said that some murderers deserve the death penalty. "In a perfect world, we wouldn't have a death penalty," he said. "But there are some people who are so terribly damaged, so twisted and devoid of empathy for other people who, in the most calculated way, decide to do terrible things to people."

Executions in the United States in 2010 were down 12percent from last year, the center reported. The nation had 46 executions this year, down from 52 last year. This year's total was less than half of that in 1999, the report stated.

Texas had 17 executions this year, a 29percent drop from 2009.

Behind Ohio, four states - Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Virginia - each had three executions.

Only 12 states had any executions.

"Whether it's concerns about the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed, the risks of executing the innocent, unfairness, or other reasons, the nation continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The process has been complicated not only by legal challenges but also by shortages of a critical drug, thiopental sodium. It is used exclusively in Ohio's lethal-injection process and as part of a three-drug system in other states. The sole U.S. manufacturer of the drug does not expect to resume production until spring.

Although the nation's number of new death sentences has remained about the same, Ohio added six people to Death Row this year, an increase from the trickle of new sentences in the previous few years. Ohio has 156 men and one woman on Death Row.

Still, that is a big drop from just a few years ago, when more than 200 people were awaiting execution in Ohio prisons.

Ohio's steady stream of executions, coupled with a trend toward more sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, has continued to trim Death Row.

Gov.-elect John Kasich, a Republican who supports capital punishment, will face reviewing two scheduled executions early in his term, in February and March.

In addition, county prosecutors have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set execution dates in about 10 other cases. Dates are being held open monthly through the end of 2011.

Ohio is also going against a geographic trend. The center reported that, since capital punishment was restored in 1976, 82 percent of all executions in the U.S. have been in the South.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, December 21, 2010

Executions decline by 12 percent in US

Washington D.C. - The number of executions carried out in the United States dropped by 12 percent in 2010. Commentators attributed the decline to changing attitudes on the practice but also cited problems with the availability of lethal injection chemicals and lengthy appeals processes.

The anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center has issued a report counting 46 executions in Texas, Ohio, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Arizona, Utah and Washington in 2010.

In 2009 there were 52 executions in 16 states.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the organization, told the Associated Press that the nation “continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010.” He noted concerns about the high financial costs of the death penalty at a time of budget cuts, concerns about executing the innocent and concerns about unfairness in application.

Scott Burns, executive director of the National Association of District Attorneys, said that appeals have added so much time between sentence and execution that some families are asking prosecutors to accept life in prison without parole. The certainty of that sentence is “sometimes more palpable to them,” he told the AP.

Lengthy sentences for violent criminals and programs to reduce recidivism could also have contributed to a decline in death sentences.

Thirty-five U.S. states have the death penalty. Texas had 17 executions in 2010, the most of any state. However, this figure was a drop from the state’s 24 executions in 2009. The Death Penalty Information Center attributed this drop to the state’s adoption of a sentence of life without parole in 2005, new district attorneys in prominent jurisdictions like Houston and Dallas, and “the ongoing residue of past mistakes.”

Twelve death row inmates in Texas have been exonerated since 1978.

About 114 new inmates will be added to death row in 2010, slightly above last year’s post-1976 record low of 112.

More than 3,000 criminals are on death row in the U.S.

Source: CNA, December 22, 2010

Poll: Americans Ready to Deep Six the Death Penalty?

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A recent poll by the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) suggests voters prefer that murderers serve a life sentence rather than idle on death row. The nationwide survey of 1,500 registered voters found most prefer life without parole over the death penalty for murderers.

DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter says concerns about fairness, executing the innocent and cost are changing minds.

"About 60 percent of the public is ready. They may still support the death penalty, but they are willing to replace it because of the problems that exist with capital punishment."

Dieter says voters ranked capital punishment the lowest among budget priorities. And, a majority of those polled favor replacing the death penalty with life without parole, if the money saved were used to fund crime-prevention programs.

"What we are finding is that people may support the death penalty in theory, but they are willing to support their legislator if he or she votes against the death penalty. They have high concerns about the cost, which is a particular concern in states facing budget crises this year."

A global movement against the death penalty is growing, according to Dieter. And, as capital punishment is exercised less and less in the U.S., Dieter sees a repeal of the practice looming.

"For some people this is a moral issue. But the majority of people have other concerns, like innocence and fairness, and even that it doesn't serve victims very well."

Dieter says of the 35 states with the death penalty, 12 carried out executions in 2010, and 82 percent of those executions were in the South. Dieter says a death penalty case carries a $3 million price tag, compared to imposing a life sentence, which costs $1 million.

The entire DPIC poll results are available at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

Source: Public News Service, December 22, 2010