[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 3




ARIZONA:

Court issues run deeper than drug controversy


The U.S. Supreme Court this week issued a sharply divided ruling that allows 
the continued use of a controversial drug in lethal injection executions, 
according to The Associated Press.

The drug, midazolam, was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma in 
2014 which took longer than expected, and led experts to raise concerns about 
violating the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Justice Samuel Alito, in writing the majority's opinion, noted that arguments 
against the drug are speculative, which allows the continued use of the drug.

The dissenting opinions, however, raised questions about the death penalty 
itself.

"I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth 
Amendment," Justice Stephen Breyer said. Breyer cited the fact that more than 
100 death row-inmates have been exonerated, which called into question whether 
or not the death penalty was reliable, the AP reported.

However, we feel that point doesn't draw into question the reliability of the 
death penalty. That really draws into question the effectiveness of the U.S. 
court system. After all, the death penalty doesn't decide whether or not 
someone is guilty or not. It's only the punishment delivered at the end.

But Breyer also brought up other points, such as the fact that it takes too 
long to carry out, which is a valid concern.

We understand that it can take time for a court case to work its way through 
the system, from trial to appeals, before finding a final ruling.

However, it can take literally decades from a crime to the final resolution of 
the court case - and that's time in purgatory for the victims' families and the 
suspect, which in and of itself could be considered a cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Currently, there are 2 men on death row in Arizona who were sentenced out of 
Yuma County. Theodore Washington was convicted for a murder in 1988, while 
Alvie "Copie" Kiles was convicted of 3 murders in 1990. While these men are 
entitled to due process, it's been over 25 years since these crimes occurred - 
and that's a problem.

The court system is an integral part of our society. However, when trials drag 
on, justice isn't served in a timely fashion for anyone.

That in turn can impact the perception of fairness when it comes to the death 
penalty, because taking so long to serve it can be construed as cruel.

Does that mean it's time to abolish the death penalty? No. But giving our court 
system an overhaul, and finding ways to improve its efficiency, is long 
overdue.

What do you think readers? Should the death penalty continue, or is it time to 
reconsider it? Share your opinions online at www.YumaSun.com, or with a Letter 
to the Editor at letters at yumasun.com.

(source: Yuma Sun)






CALIFORNIA:

D.A. won't retry death penalty phase for convicted killer


The Shasta County District Attorney's office announced Thursday it will not 
retry the death penalty phase for convicted killer Paul Gordon Smith, Jr.

15 years after he was sentenced to death, in April the California Supreme Court 
overturned his death sentence, ruling that Smith did not get a proper 
sentencing trial.

With the death sentence overturned, the case was turned back over to the Shasta 
District Attorney Stephen Carlton to determine if he would retry the death 
penalty phase and attempt to get another death sentence.

At a news conference Thursday morning, Carlton said his office had decided not 
to retry the penalty phase for a variety of reasons.

One of the reasons Carlton cited was the cost of between $1 million and $2 
million.

He also said it would take a tremendous amount of investigative resources away 
from other cases. But he added, his prosecutors believe they have enough 
witnesses and evidence to get another death penalty verdict if they pursued it.

"Paul Smith deserves to be executed," Carlton said. "Paul Smith is going to die 
in prison, whether he was executed or dies in a prison bed. He would never get 
out of prison alive."

Smith was convicted of torturing and killing 20-year-old Lora Sinner during a 
1998 camping trip and an attempted murder charge while he was in the Shasta 
County Jail.

The high court ruled that an expert was wrongly prevented from testifying. The 
jury was told of Smith's several attempts to escape from the jail and his 
violent attitude toward guards.

A prison expert was barred from telling the jury that security is tighter at 
San Quentin.

In lieu of the death sentence, Smith will now serve a life sentence.

(source: KRCR TV news)

********************

What to do about death row----Supreme Court lethal injection midazolam


To the edtior: In a curious decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, ("Despite vote, 
shift is felt on death penalty," June 30) the justices should be charged with 
practicing medicine without a license.

The use of midazolam for lethal injection is medically and pharmaceutically 
unacceptable. As a gastroenterologist performing endoscopies for more than 40 
years, I used midazolam for "conscious sedation." It is a very safe drug 
without serious respiratory and cardiovascular depression.

I am not surprised by its inadequacy for lethal injection. The justices should 
discuss basic pharmacology with those who are knowledgeable about the drugs.

Jerome Helman, M.D., Venice

....

To the editor: The inmates on death row in California are there for committing 
the most heinous imaginable killings of innocent people, children and the 
helpless elderly, not to mention blatant assassinations of many productive 
citizens.

"The contradiction is uncanny. It's wrong to kill another, except when it is 
done by the state?" That's right, so a fine is the same as robbery, an arrest 
is the same as kidnapping, and a jail sentence is the same as a guy keeping a 
person against their will in his basement....

Gov. Jerry Brown should not think twice before authorizing lethal injections. 
("Brown under pressure on lethal injection," June 30) Especially, keep in mind 
the recent escape of killers in New York and the subsequent repeat killings by 
some parolees.

Put the pedal to the metal, governor, ASAP.

Michael L. Friedman, M.D., Torrance

....

To the editor: Someone tell Justice Stephen G. Breyer that murdering an 
innocent human being is also "unfair, cruel and unusual."


His job is to interpret the Constitution as it applies to the enacted laws and 
keep his opinions to himself. For those who argue that the death penalty is not 
a deterrent, why then is everyone on death row fighting like hell to not be 
executed?

Marcus Kourtjian, Northridge

....

To the editor: I feel compelled to join Breyer in his outcry against capital 
punishment. How can we, as civilized citizens, condone legalized murder?


The contradiction is uncanny. It's wrong to kill another, except when it is 
done by the state?

Peggy A. Levine, Santa Monica

(source: Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Times)

****************

Judy Clarke honored for death penalty work


San Diego attorney Judy Clarke, known for defending some of the nation's most 
notorious criminals, is being awarded one of the highest honors bestowed by the 
U.S. 9th Circuit courts.

She will be presented the John Frank Award July 13, when an estimated 600 
federal judges, attorneys and staff will gather in downtown San Diego for the 
9th Circuit's annual conference, which is closed to the public. U.S. Supreme 
Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is expected to close the conference with a 
moderated discussion.

The circuit is made up of the court of appeals, district courts and bankruptcy 
courts in 9 Western states - including California - and 2 Pacific Island 
jurisdictions.

Clarke most recently defended Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a 
trial that ended with a death sentence, a rare outcome considering Clarke's 
other high profile cases.

Her past clients include Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Olympic Park bomber Eric 
Rudolph, Tucson mass shooter Jared Loughner and child-killer Susan Smith. 
Clarke was able to keep all off death row.

Clarke has been a strong opponent of capital punishment and has worked since 
2002 with the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, assisting 
attorneys in capitol cases at trial.

The award, named after a renowned Phoenix appellate attorney, recognizes a 
lawyer who has "demonstrated outstanding character and integrity; dedication to 
the rule of law; proficiency as a trial and appellate lawyer; success in 
promoting collegiality among members of the bench and bar; and a lifetime of 
service to the federal courts of the Ninth Circuit."

Clarke started her career in San Diego as a federal defender in 1978 and rose 
to executive director of the organization. She left in 1992 to lead the Federal 
Defenders of Washington and Idaho and later returned to San Diego, where she 
practices with her husband, attorney Thomas "Speedy" Rice.

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)

**********************

Supreme Court ruling puts spotlight back on California???s death row mess


A recent Supreme Court ruling upholding a controversial lethal injection drug 
has shifted the spotlight in the capital punishment debate back to California's 
dysfunctional death row.

The state has the largest death row backlog in the nation, with 757 condemned 
prisoners awaiting their fate after executions were halted in 2006. The high 
court ruling -- in a case involving a different drug from what California once 
used -- has no immediate impact on those cases. But it does start the clock 
ticking for the state to come up with a new plan.

That's because officials previously had agreed to propose a new injection drug 
in California within 120 days of the court decision.

With the ruling in hand, that deadline is now Oct. 27.

"We know how to fix the system -- it's not that hard," said Kent Scheidegger, 
legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "We just have a 
legislature that's anti-death penalty and obstructing it on purpose."

Death row is in a holding pattern thanks to a decade's worth of legal 
challenges.

For years, prisoners were executed with a controversial "3-drug cocktail." 
Countless state and federal judges took issue with the method, as opposition 
built and ultimately forced the halt 9 years ago.

The legal challenges culminated in a federal judge ruling the drugs 
unconstitutional last year. He said they caused excessive pain and represented 
cruel and unusual punishment.

But with California failing to adopt a new drug since 2006, families of victims 
of death row inmates sued the state last November. The suit accused the 
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of failing to establish 
a proper drug protocol, in turn delaying justice, said Scheidegger, the 
families' representative.

A settlement was reached last month, and stipulated the state would revise its 
drug policy after the court decision.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma's use of the sedative midazolam for 
capital punishment was constitutional. At the least, the ruling would appear to 
give California one viable drug option that could be lawsuit-proof, though it's 
unclear whether the state would consider it.

Figuring out a new drug plan is only part of the challenge.

California's other problems will be untangling additional legal issues, 
reactivating the system, and addressing the cost of the system. Sometimes 
decades-long execution delays are a big factor -- a case being heard in the 9th 
Circuit Court of Appeals will decide if such suspensions are constitutional.

California approved capital punishment in 1978 and has sentenced 900 people to 
death in that time. Yet only 13 have been executed. According to Scheidegger, 
an overloaded California Supreme Court and lethargic federal court system have 
rendered death row just another jail cell.

California death row inmates are 8 times more likely to die from anything other 
than execution while waiting.

Since 1978, more than 60 inmates have died from age, two-dozen from suicide, 
and a handful from homicide. 1/5 of current inmates are over 60 years old, and 
40 % have been waiting for over 20 years. At this rate, "over 500 more inmates 
will die on death row from natural causes by 2050," according to a 2011 Loyola 
Law School study.

Then there's the cost of the system. The same study shows California's death 
row has cost $4 billion since its inception. Most of that cost comes from 
security facilities and trial expenses. The study found that California 
taxpayers pay $100 million annually for the system.

According to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, 
the state's lifetime incarceration program only costs $11.5 million annually.

While the Supreme Court ruling might make it easier to go lethal drug shopping, 
death penalty foes are vowing to keep fighting.

"The state has spent the last 10 years trying to create a legally sound 
execution protocol," Ana Zamora, a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties 
Union, told the Los Angeles Times. "There is no evidence to suggest this time 
will be different."

California law requires the proposed policy be subject to public comment, a 
process that can take up to a year.

Scheidegger predicted that death row opponents will likely try to interfere. 
Another wild card is if activists renew efforts to end the death penalty 
entirely.

Drug manufacturers could also be a problem. Many companies have recently said 
they will no longer sell lethal products to state prisons. Other lethal drugs 
like sodium thiopental are no longer produced in the United States.

Meanwhile, the families of death row inmate victims are left waiting for 
justice.

The suit filed last November was on behalf of Kermit Alexander and Bradley 
Winchell, whose relatives were murdered in the early 1980s. Their killers 
remain on death row.

(source: Fox News)

************************

By the numbers: Who got killed, and why, in California last year


A report this week by the California Department of Justice showing that 
homicides and other violent crimes continued to drop statewide in 2014 also 
gave a look at the nature of killings last year.

Overall, 1,697 people were slain - an eye-opening amount to be sure but a 3 % 
decline from 2013 and the lowest number since 1971. In 1993, a staggering 4,095 
people were killed in the Golden State.

The report contained some insight into who killed whom, how they accomplished 
the terrible deed, and how many times police officers killed people, among 
other things. The following are some of the highlights:

Gender and race matters: 82 % of those killed were male. In cases where a 
victim's race was known, 41 % were Hispanic, 30 % were black and 21 % were 
white.

So does age: Hispanic and black victims tended to be younger, with nearly 1/2 
between 18 and 29. White victims were a bit older on average, with 57 % over 
40.

Domestic violence cuts along gender lines: Males were more likely than females 
to be killed by a stranger (38 % of cases versus 16 %). But women were far more 
likely than men to be slain by a spouse (19 % to 2 %). And more than 57 % of 
female victims were killed in their own home.

Guns do the job: More than 70 % of killings (in which the weapon was known) 
were accomplished with a firearm. Knives were used in 15 % of cases.

Gangs take blame: Authorities said 30 % of killings with a known motive were 
gang-related, 28 % traced to an "unspecified argument," 9 % owed to domestic 
violence and 7 % stemmed from robberies.

Men dominate the booking logs: More than 88 % of those arrested for murder were 
male. Nearly 7 % were kids under 18.

Death row grows: Executions have been on hold in California since 2006, but 
people are still being given the death penalty. In 2014, there were 13 - all 
men and primarily from Southern California.

Line of duty deaths: 5 police officers, all men, were slain on the job in 2014, 
slightly more than average. 4 were gunned down, and 1 was intentionally run 
over.

Police killings: The Department of Justice reported that cops killed 116 people 
statewide in 2014 in cases that were ruled justifiable. All but 6 of those 
killed were men. Nearly 45 % were Hispanic, 33 % were white and 16 % were 
black.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)






WASHINGTON:

Rob McKenna: Life in prison might be better than death penalty for Christopher 
Monfort


The sentencing phase in the case of cop-killer Christopher Monfort continues 
and jurors are considering if the man found guilty of murdering a Seattle 
police officer should get the death penalty.

For some, the appropriate sentence is clear, but as KIRO Radio political 
analyst and former Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna points out, 
the death penalty is often more complicated than people realize.

"It becomes a much more complex matter than you would have when you have a 
typical murder case when the death penalty is on the table," McKenna told KIRO 
Radio's Dave Ross.

In June, Monfort was found guilty of the 2009 murder of Seattle police officer 
Timothy Brenton. Ross noted that the Monfort case - a case that the accused 
pleaded guilty - cost $7 million and still took years to conclude. Ross 
wondered if there was a cheaper way in such cases.

"There really isn't when it comes to a death penalty case," McKenna said. 
"We've also seen extraordinary costs in the case of the Carnation massacre ... 
in both those cases, Carnation and Monfort, you have a death penalty case where 
prosecutors and the defense lawyers are going through excruciating lengths to 
satisfy the requirements for imposing the death penalty because every death 
penalty verdict goes on appeal, frequently all the way to the United States 
Supreme Court."

Those appeals cost more money and time. It's much more efficient to spend time 
and money on a case initially.

McKenna pointed out that some lawyers even prefer a sentence of life without 
parole because it ends up being cheaper. But that's not the only reason.

"I think a better argument than money is that you can achieve closure for the 
victims and families much sooner than you do in a case when appeals drag on for 
20 years," McKenna said.

(source: Rob McKenna, mynorthwest.com)






USA:

Punishment, secrecy and lethal injection: a few thoughts on Glossip v Gross


Once upon a time, punishment was a spectacle.

18th-century legal commentator William Blackstone described how a man convicted 
in England of treason would be dragged to the gallows, partially asphyxiated, 
disemboweled, beheaded and quartered, all in full public view.

Even in America, where the criminal law has never authorized death by torture, 
criminal punishment - capital and non-capital - was originally a public affair, 
drawing crowds that could number in the thousands.

Today things are different. Executions are performed behind closed doors, with 
few witnesses, no cameras or recording devices, and no access for the general 
public.

This private, hidden quality is a hallmark of modern criminal punishment. 
Offenders who might once have been publicly flogged, castigated or pilloried 
are now put in a jail cell where hardly anyone sees what happens to them.

The public no longer sees criminal offenders suffer, and for this reason, their 
suffering no longer attracts much public attention or concern.

Although in the past, many enjoyed the spectacle of public punishment, many 
were also repulsed by its sanguinary excess. As a result, movements to limit or 
reduce the death penalty and to reform criminal punishment enjoyed great 
popular support in 18th- and 19th-century America.

Public support for punishment reform is much weaker today - not, I would argue, 
because punishment is less harsh, but because it is less visible.

The spectacle of punishment has become an anti-spectacle.

On Monday, in Glossip v Gross, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality 
of the ultimate form of punishment as anti-spectacle: death by lethal 
injection.

What is lethal injection?

The lethal injection procedure challenged in this case involves 3 drugs: a 
paralyzing agent, which deprives the offender of the ability to breathe (or 
move at all); potassium chloride, which stops the heart; and midazolam, a 
sedative.

The 1st 2 drugs in this 3-drug "cocktail" pose the threat of excruciating pain 
prior to death. The paralyzing agent, on its own, would make the offender feel 
as though he or she were being drowned or asphyxiated. The potassium chloride, 
on its own, would create pain so extreme that Justice Sotomayor characterized 
it as the "chemical equivalent of being burned alive."

Together, the paralyzing agent and the potassium chloride would make the 
offender feel as though he were being simultaneously drowned and burned to 
death from the inside - a punishment whose cruelty is comparable to the fate 
Blackstone described for traitors in 18th-century England.

This pain is supposed to be negated by the 3rd drug, midazolam, which is 
included to render the offender unconscious and thus impervious to pain.

The petitioners in Glossip v Gross argued that midazolam was not adequate to 
this task, and that its use created a substantial risk that the offender would 
suffer excruciating pain before dying.

The trouble with midazolam

Midazolam has not been approved as a surgical anesthetic and has no analgesic 
properties. Although midazolam can render people unconscious, there is concern 
that it might produce a relatively shallow state of unconsciousness, and that 
the offender might be jolted awake by the pain caused by the other two drugs.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Alito, rejected the 
argument that the use of midazolam created an unacceptable risk of severe pain 
prior to death.

The court gave great deference to the lower court???s finding that midazolam 
was a sufficiently powerful sedative to eliminate the risk of pain.

The court also held that those who object to a given method of execution have 
the burden to demonstrate not only that the challenged method is cruel, but 
also that a feasible, non-cruel alternative method is "known and available" 
(more on this later).

Some questions about the 3-drug cocktail

1 question that arises from Glossip and its predecessor case, Baze v Rees 
(which involved barbiturates rather than midazolam) is why we have to guess 
about whether offenders subjected to the three-drug cocktail experience pain.

Lethal injection has been the dominant form of capital punishment in the United 
States for the past several decades, and numerous people have been subjected to 
it. Wouldn???t we know if they were suffering?

The answer to this question is no.

Remember that one of the drugs in the three-drug cocktail is a paralyzing 
agent. This drug makes it impossible to breathe, but it also makes it 
impossible to physically respond to pain. Like the narrator in Edgar Allen 
Poe???s The Premature Burial, the offender subjected to the paralyzing agent is 
"buried alive" - not in a grave, but in his own body, unable to move or 
communicate his pain to others.

Why do the states use the paralyzing agent?

The combination of potassium choloride and barbiturates would be equally 
effective on their own. In fact, there is near-universal consensus that 
executions could be performed painlessly simply by using a massive overdose of 
barbiturates. This is precisely the method used in animal euthanasia throughout 
the country.

Why not, then, simply eliminate the paralyzing agent and use a 1- or 2-drug 
cocktail to perform the execution?

The reason appears to be primarily aesthetic. Without the paralyzing agent, 
potassium chloride may cause the body to writhe and convulse prior to death, a 
highly unpleasant thing to watch. But if the potassium chloride is also 
eliminated, the barbiturate may take a significant amount of time to kill the 
offender, again causing discomfort to those witnessing the execution. The 
paralyzing agent allows the state to kill the offender quickly without any 
appearance of suffering.

Appearance and reality

It's important to notice the irony here.

The very thing used to make the death appear peaceful creates the risk of 
excruciating pain - both by causing the sensation of asphyxiation and by 
depriving the offender of the ability to communicate his pain to others.

In this sense, the 3-drug cocktail is a perfect example of the modern drive 
toward less cruel-seeming - but not necessarily less cruel - punishments.

Capital punishment has moved from "violent" methods like hanging or the firing 
squad to "scientific" methods, like the electric chair, the gas chamber and 
lethal injection. Non-capital punishment has moved offenders from the pillory 
to the prison, where we cannot see their suffering.

It may be that in many instances, the older methods of punishment were less 
cruel than those that have replaced them. But the public has no way to judge 
this issue, because the new punishments are hidden from the public eye.

Alternative, feasible, non-cruel methods of execution

As noted above, the Supreme Court in Glossip held that an offender challenging 
the constitutionality of a method of execution has the burden of establishing 
that there is a "known and available," feasible, constitutionally acceptable 
alternative method of execution available.

If the offender fails to meet this burden, the offender is stuck with the 
government's chosen method of execution, however cruel it may be.

This holding, I would argue, is absurd on its face.

What if the government chose to burn offenders at the stake, or have them torn 
apart by wild beasts? Is it plausible to say that a court should uphold such 
punishments unless the challenger can identify a feasible alternative? To state 
the question is to answer it.

The real reason the Supreme Court has imposed this burden, I would argue, is 
that it believes (correctly) that the international death penalty abolition 
movement is trying to put an end to the death penalty by making 
constitutionally acceptable methods of execution unavailable.

Justice Alito was sufficiently concerned about these efforts that he devoted a 
full 2 pages of his majority opinion in Glossip to describing them.

7 years ago, the Supreme Court held that certain barbiturates are sufficiently 
powerful to negate the risk of pain in lethal injection. Since then, the 
movement has convinced the barbiturate manufacturers to refuse to sell it to 
states for use in executions.

The movement's success in this regard is the reason states like Oklahoma and 
Florida switched to midazolam in the first place. Other states have responded 
to the activist-induced barbiturate shortage in widely varying ways. Utah has 
brought back the firing squad. Nebraska, by contrast, recently abolished the 
death penalty within the state.

But all of this is ultimately beyond the point. If a punishment is cruel and 
unusual, it is cruel and unusual.

An offender should not be tortured to death because the Supreme Court does not 
like the strategy of those who wish to abolish the death penalty.

(source: John Stinneford, Professor of Law at University of Florida ---- 
theconversation.com)

***************

How states are responding to the Supreme Court's lethal injection decision


The country's patchwork, disjointed series of execution protocols does not 
appear likely to be changing any time soon, even with a Supreme Court ruling 
this week saying that Oklahoma can use the sedative midazolam in lethal 
injections.

In the days that followed the ruling, despite an ongoing shortage of lethal 
injection drugs, there did not appear to be a rush on the part of states to 
adopt midazolam, a controversial drug that has been used in troubling 
executions. This is not terribly surprising, as experts said after the decision 
that it wasn???t as if the Supreme Court urged every state to use the drug.

"I don't think a lot of states are going to jump toward midazolam just because 
the Supreme Court said it's permissible," said Richard Dieter, a senior program 
director at the Death Penalty Information Center. "Its risks are apparent."

As a result, rather than providing a clear path forward for the dwindling 
number of states that still carry out executions or hope to do so, the ruling 
instead suggested that states could retain leeway in how they can execute 
inmates. Instead of providing a framework for carrying out executions, the 
majority opinion says that the status quo - a fractured system with new 
protocols, different drug combinations and widely varying backup options - will 
remain intact for now.

Some states, looking at the drug shortage across the country, have chosen to 
adopt or expand other options, like Utah and the firing squad, Oklahoma and 
nitrogen gas and Tennessee and the electric chair. Other states, though, have 
made different changes in recent months and appear to be sticking with those 
plans.

Take Ohio. While that state was the first in the country to use the 
controversial sedative as part of a two-drug protocol, pairing it with the 
narcotic hydromorphone for an execution last year, it didn't stay in the 
midazolam business for very long. In January 2014, Ohio's execution of Dennis 
McGuire - who admitted to raping and murdering a pregnant newlywed named Joy 
Stewart - lasted for nearly 25 minutes, as McGuire struggled, gasped and 
choked. Ohio has not carried out any executions since then, and earlier this 
year the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said it was dropping 
midazolam and hydromorphone. A few weeks later, officials said that they were 
delaying every execution scheduled for 2015 to let them get new drugs and adopt 
the new protocol.

Now that the Supreme Court has said states can use midazolam, that opens up the 
question of whether Ohio will once again turn to that sedative.

"Midazolam is not currently part of Ohio's execution policy and I will not 
speculate on what drugs may be used in the future," a spokeswoman for the Ohio 
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction wrote in an e-mail.

Still, the state did make some changes to its execution policies this week. On 
Monday, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction updated its 
guidelines for executing inmates. The policy, as was first noted by the 
Associated Press, now says that the state will test any compounded execution 
drugs it plans to use and could also test any other execution drugs.

Ohio's next execution is scheduled for Jan. 21, 2016. This means there will be 
2 years between executions, which doesn't sound like a lot, but Ohio is one of 
the most active death-penalty states in the modern era. Between 2001 and 2014, 
the state executed at least 1 person each year. There are currently 21 
executions scheduled in the state between January 2016 and May 2019.

The next 2 executions in the country are scheduled to take place later this 
month in Missouri and Texas. Missouri says it plans to carry out an execution 
July 14 using pentobarbital, while Texas says it hopes to execute an inmate 2 
days later with the same drug.

In Texas, where there are 6 executions scheduled between July and October, 
officials with the Department of Criminal Justice say they have enough 
pentobarbital to carry out those scheduled executions. The drug shortage's 
impact has been felt in the country's most active death penalty state, though, 
as Texas officials say they almost ran out of the drugs this year before 
obtaining a new batch.

Still other states that use or plan to use midazolam say they want to move 
ahead. Virginia corrections officials say that state has midazolam on hand, but 
they add that the state has no executions scheduled. Its supply of the drug 
expires later this year.

Authorities in Oklahoma, where the Supreme Court case originated, said they 
wanted to reschedule executions postponed by the court???s decision to hear the 
challenge to their policies. The Alabama attorney general said he believed it 
meant his state, which wants to use midazolam, could resume executions. In 
Florida, the state that has used midazolam more often than any other - and a 
state that has the same execution protocol as Oklahoma - is also calling to 
resume executions, which were halted there after the Supreme Court took the 
Oklahoma case.

The state's attorney general has asked the Florida Supreme Court to lift a stay 
of execution it put into place while awaiting the higher court's decision. The 
court has not lifted the stay so far, but if it does, that would clear the way 
for executions to resume in Florida as well. Florida, like Oklahoma, has not 
carried out an execution since January, when the Supreme Court said it would 
hear a challenge to the Oklahoma protocol.

(source: Washington Post)