Legal challenges to the way execution drugs are being selected and acquired for lethal injections across the U.S. are now targeting Texas, home to the country's busiest execution chamber.
2004 photo by Ron T. Ennis, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, via AP
Attorneys for two condemned inmates urged a state district court Tuesday to halt the executions because they say recent changes to the long-standing lethal injection protocol have been illegally shrouded in secrecy.
A national shortage of sodium thiopental, part of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections across the country, has triggered a scramble for execution drugs in Texas and several other states, leading to controversial changes in way death row prisoners are put to death.
One of the condemned inmates in Texas — convicted murderer Cleve Foster, who is scheduled to die April 5 — alleges in court documents that state officials failed to respond to "numerous pleas for information" about how he would be executed. The state acknowledged late last year that its supply of the sedative sodium thiopental was due to expire March 1.
Texas, which has executed 466 inmates since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, announced March 15 that it was replacing sodium thiopental with pentobarbital, a drug used in euthanizing animals. Foster's death would mark the first change in execution drugs used by the state in more than 30 years.
"There are so many questions about the manner in which Texas proceeds with executions, this (protocol change) is only one of them," said Maurie Levin, part of the legal team representing Foster and Humberto Leal, who is scheduled to die July 7.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons declined to comment, saying the agency does not discuss pending litigation.
The legal action in Texas comes as other states, including Arizona, Georgia and Oklahoma, have been snared in separate legal battles over their efforts to either find additional supplies of sodium thiopental or substitute the sedative with pentobarbital. Serious shortages of sodium thiopental began to appear last year and accelerated whenHospira, the lone federally approved U.S. manufacturer of the drug, said in January that it was ceasing production.
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Among the developments:
•In Georgia, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents this month seized the state's supply of sodium thiopental as part of an inquiry into how the drug was obtained in wake of the U.S. shortage.
"The DEA is working with the Georgia Department of Corrections to ensure that they are in compliance with federal DEA regulations regarding controlled substances," according to a statement by the agency. The agency declined to elaborate further.
•In Arizona, convicted murderer Eric John King was executed Tuesday after his attorney unsuccessfully challenged the state's acquisition of sodium thiopental from Great Britain.
Amy Rizzonico, spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, said the drug was obtained properly.
•In Oklahoma, a federal judge in November approved the use of pentobarbital to replace sodium thiopental in lethal injections.
At the time, Oklahoma Assistant Attorney General Stephen Krise said the state was "forced" to find an alternative due to the shortage of sodium thiopental.
Levin, the lead defense attorney in the Texas litigation, said the state circumvented legal requirements by approving the use of a new lethal injection drug without soliciting public comment.
"Executions, and the manner in which we carry them out, are of unique public interest and importance, and precisely the sort of decisions and procedures that should be aired in the light of day," Levin said. "The requirements of transparency, deliberation, and accountability reflected in the (state law) are even more imperative when we are carrying out the ultimate act that Texas can take against one of its citizens." (US today)
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