[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., LA., TENN., MO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 14




FLORIDA:

Florida Supreme Court should change death sentences to life in prison


The arguments before the Florida Supreme Court this month exposed the state as 
an outlier in its use of capital punishment, despite evolving social norms that 
have moved other states away from this outdated form of punishment. The court, 
seeking to respond to a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion that struck down the 
state's death-sentencing process as unconstitutional, should ensure the death 
penalty is at least applied fairly. It should commute the sentences of all 390 
death row inmates to life in prison, and the state needs to get the message 
that capital punishment is inherently flawed.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 opinion, ruled in January that Florida's 
death-sentencing statute was unconstitutional because it vested final authority 
with judges rather than juries. In response to that ruling, the state Supreme 
Court heard arguments over whether inmate Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced 
to die for the 1998 murder of a co-worker in Pensacola, should have his death 
sentence commuted to life in prison. Hanging in the balance are the lives of 
every death row inmate whose death sentences came before Florida lawmakers 
changed the law this year in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.

The legislative fix was the bare minimum, as lawmakers sought protection to 
retain the death penalty rather than impose the real checks and balances needed 
to reduce the arbitrary nature of capital punishment. The new law requires at 
least 10 of 12 jurors in a capital case to agree on a death sentence, up from a 
simple majority. In addition, jurors must be unanimous in finding aggravating 
factors to warrant a death sentence. While these changes give more authority to 
the jury, they still leave open a window for unfair treatment. And they don't 
address the cost of death penalty cases, the racial disparities in prosecutions 
or the errors in witness testimony and forensic science that have driven other 
states away from imposing the ultimate punishment.

The issue for the court is more narrow: Is it fair to uphold a death sentence 
when the process used for assigning death was so flawed as to be 
unconstitutional? Attorney General Pam Bondi wants the original death sentences 
carried out. She argues the sentencing method was struck down - not the death 
penalty itself. And she argues that the U.S. Supreme Court's Hurst decision 
should not be applied retroactively, because the Legislature changed the law in 
response the court's decision.

But the sentencing process is not some arcane part of the law. It is the 
foundation of the death penalty statute. And as Hurst's attorney, David Davis, 
argued to the court: "You cannot separate the punishment from the procedure." 
Without a sentencing process, he noted, there is no death penalty. Three former 
justices of the Florida Supreme Court, all appointed by a Democratic governor, 
filed a brief in the Hurst case urging the court to commute the 390 death cases 
to life without parole. And last week, a Miami-Dade circuit judge ruled the 
state's death penalty was still unconstitutional because the recently enacted 
changes fall short of requiring unanimity among the jurors, adding to the 
uncertainty of the death penalty in Florida.

The state's high court should recognize the Legislature's fix fails to fully 
correct the flaws of the past. Carrying out a punishment that was so flawed 
that the sentencing procedure was abandoned would be fundamentally unfair. The 
court should reduce all death sentences to life in prison and the state should 
rethink the usefulness of the death penalty.

(source: Editorial, Tampa Bay Times)






LOUISIANA:

Louisiana House rejects additional money for public defenders


The Louisiana House of Representatives rejected a bid to give public defenders 
additional money in the state's next budget cycle. The measure failed on a 
30-54 vote on Thursday (May 13).

Public defenders offices across the states are struggling with a lack of money. 
Fourteen public defender offices in Louisiana are in some type of restrictive 
status because they don't have enough funding to provide all their services.

This has caused serious concerns about whether civil liberties are being 
violated across the state, as people are being held in jail after being charged 
without being provided any legal representation. Lawsuits have been brought 
against public defenders for not providing adequate services.

Currently, the state public defenders board is slated to receive about $30 
million in the budget cycle that begins July 1. Gov. John Bel Edwards advocated 
for keeping the public defenders' funding the same as last year because of 
their ongoing financial troubles. Most other state agencies are taking a 
reduction, while Louisiana faces a $600 million budget shortfall.

But Rep. Cedric Glover, D-Shreveport, offered an alternative. On the House 
floor, he proposed taking $6.3 million from the state Department of Corrections 
and giving that money to the public defenders. He said he thought the public 
defender funding situation had reached a crisis point.

Glover's amendment failed, in part, because he couldn't explain what type of 
cuts the Department of Corrections -- which oversees prisons -- might 
experience if the $6.3 million was moved away that agency. The corrections 
department is already expected to take a cut next year, and there were concerns 
about how the prisons would deal with even more money being taken away.

Some state lawmakers also think the public defender board spends too much money 
on death penalty cases, at the expense of the local district offices. About 28 
% of the state public defender board's budget this year -- $9.5 million -- was 
devoted to providing death penalty defense, according to Jay Dixon, the state's 
public defender.

The state public defender board is not supposed to be the primary source of 
funding for the local offices. The bulk of public defender money is supposed to 
come from court fees assessed on defendants when they plead guilty or lose a 
case. In reality, most of these fees come from people admitting to traffic 
violations.

One of the major reasons public defenders are having funding problems is that 
far fewer traffic tickets are being written in Louisiana than just a few years 
ago. It's not entirely clear why at this point. But local public defenders are 
having to rely more on the state board for financial support -- and the state 
board hasn't been able to keep up.

In New Orleans, the public defender is refusing to take certain types of felony 
cases, arguing its office doesn't have the staff and resources to handle them. 
That led a New Orleans judge to release seven defendants last month because not 
enough money was available to mount an adequate defense for them.

The situation is considered most dire in Acadiana, where 5,200 people are on a 
wait list for a lawyer from the local public defender's office. The 15th 
Judicial District in the Lafayette area has lost more than half of its staff 
and contract lawyers since February because of a lack of money.

(source: New Orleans Times-Picayune)

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

Defense asks for DNA, fingerprint analyses in triple murder case


Prosecutors have agreed to allow attorneys for a man charged in the Nov. 4, 
2012, stabbings of a Lockport woman and her daughters to have experts conduct 
DNA and fingerprint analyses of certain pieces of evidence.

David Brown, 38, of Houma, is set for trial Sept. 12 on 1st-degree murder 
charges in the deaths of 29-year-old Jacquelin Nieves and her daughters, 
7-year-old Gabriela and 1-year-old Izabela. He is also accused of raping 
Jacquelin and Gabriela Nieves and setting the family's apartment on fire.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. State District Judge John LeBlanc is 
presiding over the case in Thibodaux.

Kerry Cuccia and his Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana team are 
representing Brown. Cuccia filed a motion asking the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's 
Office Crime Laboratory, Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office and Lafourche Parish 
Coroner's Office to release certain pieces of evidence for DNA analysis by the 
defense's expert.

According to a written request, the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's and Coroner's 
offices collected the following evidence during their investigation into the 
crime:

-- Swabs of blood from the interior of the front door, floor next to the 
stairwell and near the entertainment center, and a wall at the top of the 
stairs.

-- Fingernail swabs from both of Jacquelin Nieves's hands and fingernail swabs 
and scrapings from both of Brown's hands.

-- Swab of a gas can handle.

-- Swab from inside of the shed.

George Schiro of Scales Biological Laboratory in Brandon, Miss., will conduct 
the DNA analysis, according to the request. He will use "only nondestructive 
testing methods or testing methods that will not prevent such additional 
testing as the State may desire to perform."

In another motion, Cuccia asked the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office to submit 
evidence for fingerprint analysis. He says during the investigation, the 
Sheriff's Office collected a print of a palm and four fingers from the interior 
of the front door to the apartment.

Anna Duggar of the chemistry department at Loyola University New Orleans will 
conduct the fingerprint analysis and follow the same protocol as Schiro during 
testing, according to the request.

"None of the items in that motion were tested by the state, and we would like 
to test them," Cuccia said in a phone interview.

The evidence will be returned to the agencies it came from when the testing is 
complete, the request says. The agencies have 5 business days to ship the 
items.

Cuccia also wants a member of the Capital Defense Project to be present for 
shipping.

Lafourche Parish District Attorney Cam Morvant II said his office has agreed to 
Cuccia's requests, and the agencies involved are working on getting the 
evidence to Cuccia.

"They listed what they wanted, and we told the judge we're good with it," 
Morvant said. "We're going to arrange to have evidence taken out, and they can 
test it. We have no objection."

(source: houmatoday.com)






TENNESSEE:

Mentally ill should be spared from death penalty


The Tennessean recently reported on the resentencing of death row inmate Jerry 
Ray Davidson to life in prison without parole (Dickson death row inmate's 
sentence now life in prison, April 1). Davidson brutally murdered Virginia 
Jackson in 1995. At trial, his attorneys did not present mitigating evidence of 
his lifelong history of severe mental illness, which Tennessee Supreme Court 
Justice William Koch Jr. described as "voluminous and compelling" and included 
2 years of hospitalization at Central State Hospital. Now, after 2 decades of 
litigation, Davidson will die in prison.

Tennessee has pursued the death penalty for others like Davidson. Occasionally, 
these individuals are executed. Other times, the cases are litigated for 
decades, ending in a sentence less than death, but not before putting victims' 
families through a process that delays legal finality and costs taxpayers 
millions.

Another example: Richard Taylor, who was convicted in 1981 for joyriding and 
robbery in Tennessee. While incarcerated, Taylor killed correctional officer 
Ronald Moore after officials stopped giving Taylor his antipsychotic 
medication. He was sentenced to death.

In 2003, he was granted a new trial but allowed to represent himself, calling 
no witnesses and introducing no evidence. The jury sentenced Taylor to death 
again. His conviction and death sentence were reversed in 2008, with Taylor 
receiving a life sentence - 27 years after his 1st capital trial.

Though most individuals with severe mental illness are not violent - more 
likely to become crime victims than perpetrators - a lack of access to 
treatment can, in some instances, lead to violence. And in Tennessee today, 
there is simply not enough access to treatment.

The result is that law enforcement has become increasingly responsible for 
these individuals. In a 2014 op-ed in The Tennessean, Davidson County Mental 
Health Court Judge Daniel Eisenstein wrote:

In 2004, the Mental Health Court served approximately 50 people at any given 
time ... In January 2014, approximately 180 people were being supervised by the 
court, in addition to a separate docket of military veterans with mental health 
and substance abuse problems serving approximately 30 men and women. Why has 
this happened? Mainly, money and priorities ... Mental health treatment has in 
many cases been shifted from state-run mental health facilities and community 
programs to courts, jails and prisons.

Still, when an individual who has a severe mental illness commits a heinous 
crime, there must be a consequence. But should that consequence be the death 
penalty? A coalition of mental health advocates and others called Tennessee 
Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE) believes that 
individuals with severe mental illness who commit these crimes should be held 
accountable, but with sentences like life or life without parole.

And there is precedent. In the U.S., we don't execute minors or those with 
intellectual disabilities. Excluding individuals with severe mental illness 
from the death penalty on a case-by-case basis (also under consideration in 
North Carolina and Ohio) is just smart policy. Exclusion helps spare victims' 
families decades of litigation, reduces costs to taxpayers and allows resources 
to be redirected to mental health care, victims' compensation and support for 
law enforcement, moving Tennessee toward a criminal justice system that works 
better for all of us.

(source: Opinion----Hannah Cox is the coordinator for Tennessee Alliance for 
the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE). She is a former policy advocate 
for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a longtime champion for 
those with mental illness; The Tennessean)






MISSOURI----foreign national to face death penalty

Trial set in killing of New Florence man


A Mexican national suspected of killing 5 men in a 2-state crime rampage will 
stand trial in Missouri, a judge ruled Thursday.

Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, 40, is accused of killing a Kansas City, Kan., 
neighbor and 3 other men at the neighbor's home on March 7, then going about 
170 miles into Missouri and killing Randy Nordman in New Florence, about 80 
miles west of St. Louis, the next day.

4 law enforcement officials, a medical examiner and a coroner testified at a 
preliminary hearing in Montgomery County, where Serrano-Vitorino is charged 
with 1st-degree murder, burglary and armed criminal action in Nordman's death.

Associate Circuit Judge Kelly Broniec ruled after the hearing that there was 
enough evidence to move forward with a trial. Arraignment was scheduled for 
June 1. Missouri prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Serrano-Vitorino mostly stared straight ahead during 2 hours of testimony. He 
used headphones to listen through a Spanish interpreter. Serrano-Vitorino also 
is charged with 4 counts of 1st-degree murder in Kansas. It isn't clear whether 
Kansas prosecutors will also seek the death penalty.

Authorities have not discussed a motive, though Gorman has said the Kansas 
killings did not appear to be drug-related.

A probable cause statement alleges that Serrano-Vitorino confronted Nordman, 
49, in Nordman's garage and the 2 struggled over Serrano-Vitorino's rifle. As 
Nordman's wife ran for safety inside the house and called 911, she heard a 
gunshot and saw a man running away.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Brooks McGinnis testified that he spotted 
Serrano-Vitorino hiding in the grass near Interstate 70 late on March 8 or 
early March 9, with an assault rifle at his side. He said Serrano-Vitorino was 
arrested without incident.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Former Missouri death row inmate granted temporary prison leave


Reginald Clemons was convicted of the murders of Robin and Julie Kerry. The 
conviction was overturned and Clemons is awaiting a new trial. He's also 
serving time for a charge of assaulting a state prison employee.

A former employee of the Missouri Department of Corrections is outraged over a 
recent privilege granted to Clemons. He was allowed to visit a St. Louis area 
funeral home to say his final goodbyes to a family member who passed away. 
There were restrictions on the visit.

The former employee asked us not to reveal his identity, but told Fox 2 News 
the funeral home visit took place Friday. Prosecutors confirm the visit took 
place. A judge's order reads, in part, "Defendant is not to have contact with 
anyone except law enforcement and funeral home personnel required for the 
visit."

The former corrections employee believes the transfer put the public and 
corrections officers in potential danger. A source connected to the Missouri 
Department of Corrections said Clemons made the visit without incident.

Prosecutors did not oppose the request from Clemons.

A statement from the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office reads, "We did not 
oppose the defense's request for Mr. Clemons, given the very narrow scope of 
the transport order. We continue with our efforts to seek justice for Robin and 
Julie Kerry." Clemons was on death row and could face the death penalty in his 
retrial. Fox 2 News contacted the Missouri Department of Correction to ask how 
often death row inmates are given the opportunity similar to the one given 
Clemons. A spokesperson is checking into our request.

(source: fox2now.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Father shares his unique outlook on death penalty


The death penalty is like many a hot-button issue: Your mind changes when you 
know someone. When your neighbor gets married and comes out as gay, for 
example, your mindset on same-sex marriage is altered. When you are full of 
strong opinions about the childrearing techniques of others, and then you have 
your 1st child, you suddenly understand how much you don't know. As you learn 
and grow, however, you gradually acquire the authority to speak on issues that 
affect you personally.

Or you may be thrust into a wrenching, heartbreaking expertise. That was the 
case for Bud Welch, who has been a tireless opponent of the death penalty for 2 
decades. Mr. Welch can speak to the issue of the death penalty with intimate, 
painful knowledge, because his daughter, Julie, died at the hands of a domestic 
terrorist in the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. Julie was 23, fresh 
out of college, a Spanish-language interpreter for the Social Security 
Administration in the Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh was subsequently 
convicted of killing Julie and 167 other people and injuring hundreds more. He 
was sentenced to death.

As a Catholic, Mr. Welch was against the death penalty before Julie was killed, 
as was Julie herself. Like any parent, however, he felt murderous toward 
McVeigh in his grief. Understandably, he wanted to kill his child???s murderer 
with his own bare hands.

In the 21 years since losing Julie, Bud Welch has traveled the globe and told 
the story of his journey from a grieving father to an international spokesman 
against the death penalty. In advance of his upcoming talk at St. Philip's 
Church in Bakersfield, which takes place this Tuesday at 7 p.m., Mr. Welch 
graciously agreed to speak with me by telephone.

"When your parents die, you go to the hilltop and you bury them," said Mr. 
Welch. "When your children die, you bury them in your heart." He paused. "It's 
forever. It never goes away."

Death penalty talk

Who: Bud Welch, father of Julie Welch, who was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City 
bombing

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: St. Philip the Apostle Church, 7100 Stockdale Highway

He spoke lovingly of Julie's accomplishments as a linguist who could speak five 
languages fluently. She'd been an exchange student in high school and again in 
college, graduating from Marquette University with a triple degree in Spanish, 
Italian and French. She'd been bright and faithful, a beloved only daughter. 
And she'd been passionately opposed to the death penalty, an activist against 
its use.

Accordingly, Mr. Welch has honored his daughter's memory by striving to end the 
death penalty in the United States and abroad.

"It's helped me tremendously in healing," he said, regarding his life's 
mission.

He famously visited the father of the executed Timothy McVeigh, a fellow 
Catholic who also lost his child. Mr. Welch's powerful story has been 
instrumental in bringing about an end to the death penalty in such diverse 
places as Bermuda and Mongolia. He noted that since the U.S. Supreme Court 
reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 7 of the 38 states that returned to using 
it have since abolished it. Now an initiative to outlaw the death penalty has 
qualified for the November ballot in California, and Mr. Welch is coming to 
town to share his story with us.

Asked how those opposed to the death penalty might change the hearts and minds 
of family, friends, and neighbors who support it, Mr. Welch answered, "Well, we 
all know what the 3 most important things in real estate are ... 'Location, 
location, location.' The 3 most important things in getting the death penalty 
abolished are 'Education education, education'!"

Hence some information: Many studies show that the death penalty is not an 
effective deterrent to crime; nor does it address the root causes of crime. A 
death sentence is up to 16 times more expensive than life without parole, 
chewing up public funds that could be more effectively used for victim 
services, law enforcement resources, and offender treatment programs. Those 
sentenced to death are disproportionately poor, and people of color.

Tragically, the killing of a prisoner is not reversible in the case of 
exoneration. Most importantly, the death penalty, in taking a life legally, 
violates the innate dignity of all life, and commits a homicide in the name of 
all of us.

For Bud Welch, these bloodless statistics are excruciatingly personal. Bud 
Welch's talk at St. Philip the Apostle Church, 7100 Stockdale Highway, is free 
and open to the public. His visit is brought to us by the Bakersfield chapter 
of California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, with a 
generous sponsorship from the Kegley Institute of Ethics, and in partnership 
with Faith in Action Kern County and the Catholic Diocese of Fresno.

Come and listen with open ears, an open mind, and an open heart. Then when you 
discuss this particular hot-button issue, you'll know someone.

(source: Column, Valerie Schultz; The Californian)

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

Is it time to scrap California's death penalty?

The Democrats who control the California state government are in an ambitious 
mood of late.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Senate president Kevin de Leon spar over who 
will lead efforts to impose far stronger gun control laws. Newsom thinks the 
Golden State should allow the legalization of marijuana. Gov. Jerry Brown 
pursues fundamental reforms in how California punishes large categories of 
criminals. And Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, has started a 
national debate about guaranteeing that private sector workers get paid sick 
days, as California now requires.

But the time may have come for another important debate: Should California 
consider a ballot measure in 2018 that would overturn past measures and scrap 
the death penalty?

We hope to hear from state leaders, families of crime victims, law enforcement 
officials and the public. What do you think?

A good starting point for this debate is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen 
Breyer???s repeated denunciations of California's version of the death penalty. 
Breyer and many other critics have noted that in the 40 years since the U.S. 
Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional, California has 
executed only 13 people, and none since 2006. But the state has 748 people on 
death row, with many having been sentenced decades ago. Long legal challenges, 
difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections and more have turned 
California's death-penalty process into a complete morass.

Just this month, Breyer wrote that in his view this makes the death penalty 
erratic and unreliable - limbo justice so capricious as to be unconstitutional. 
He said this also destroys one of the most-cited rationales offered for the 
penalty: that it deters criminals by reminding them that they will pay the 
ultimate price for the most awful crimes.

So we have a California death penalty that essentially never is carried out - 
that arguably has no deterrent value - and which has as a main effect the 
emptying of the state treasury. The California Commission on the Fair 
Administration of Justice has estimated that having a death row for condemned 
prisoners costs California more than 10 times as much as having these prisoners 
serving life imprisonment. A 2011 study put the total cost to the state since 
1976 at $4 billion - more than $300 million per person executed.

In many ways it would be appropriate for the governor, a longtime opponent of 
capital punishment, to lead this debate. In 1986, voters removed 3 justices 
whom Brown had appointed to the California Supreme Court - Rose Bird, Cruz 
Reynoso and Joseph Grodin - for overturning dozens of seemingly legitimate 
death penalty sentences. So Brown knows the power of the death penalty as a 
political issue. But since 1986, California's process has become more of a 
fiasco, not less of one.

Brown is going to get great credit as the governor who stabilized California 
after years of often ineffective leadership. If he is looking for a beefier 
policy legacy to go with his management legacy, leading the charge for a 2018 
ballot initiative that scraps the death penalty might be the way to go.

Yet Californians have repeatedly shown strong support for the death penalty. 
Does that persist even now? We intend to find out.

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board)






USA:

US states are now going to have to go underground to get the drugs for lethal 
injection


Pfizer just became the last pharmaceutical company to block the use of its 
drugs in lethal injections.

This means that there are no more FDA-approved manufacturers that will supply 
the drugs used in lethal injections for the death penalty, The New York Times 
reports.

"Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines 
for use in lethal injection," Maya Foa, director of the death-penalty team at 
the human-rights group Reprieve, told The Times.

In the last few years, drug companies have started blocking their drugs from 
being used as part of the death penalty. But these drugs also have other 
medical uses, which can make it tricky to keep them from making it into state 
prisons that still carry out the death penalty and to keep them from being used 
for that purpose.

Pfizer says that it opposes using the drugs for the death penalty.

"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we 
serve, ... [and] strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal 
injections for capital punishment," the company said in a statement to The 
Times.

Still, many drug companies have succeeded in limiting the use of their drugs, 
which is why many states have started turning to compounding pharmacies, which 
can make the drug combinations themselves.

Compounding pharmacies are typically used so patients can get alternative 
versions of existing medications, and they have less oversight than branded and 
generic pharmaceutical companies that need to get their products approved by 
the US Food and Drug Administration.

The move could make it tougher for states to acquire the drugs for the purpose 
of lethal injections.

(source: Business Insider)

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

Pfizer Takes A Stand Against Death Penalty By Blocking Its Drugs For Use In 
Lethal Injection Cocktails


Pfizer drug company has taken a stand by blocking the use of its drugs for use 
in lethal injections. According to NBC News, Pfizer announced on Friday in a 
statement that it was taking steps to ensure that its products don't wind up in 
the deadly cocktails states use to execute prisoners.

In its statement, Pfizer added that it is "enforcing a distribution restriction 
for specific products that have been part of, or considered by some states for 
their lethal injection protocols."

Those 7 products mentioned include pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, 
idazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide, vecuronium bromide - and the 
powerful anesthetic propofol, which NBC News notes was the drug that resulted 
in the death of Michael Jackson.

Pfizer took the additional step to ensure that its drugs do not wind up state's 
lethal cocktails by insisting that wholesalers and distributors "not resell 
these products to correctional institutions for use in lethal injections."

In addition, local governments "must certify that products they purchase or 
otherwise acquire are used only for medically prescribed patient care and not 
for any penal purposes."

Pfizer joins more than 20 U.S. and European drugmakers that have taken similar 
actions in recent weeks and months.

According to The New York Times, the drug companies took action against the 
death penalty, citing either moral or business reasons.

Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights 
advocacy group, said the move by drug companies is making it more difficult for 
states to acquire the drugs necessary to administer during an execution.

"With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential 
execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose. Executing states 
must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal 
injection."

With Pfizer's announcement, the last remaining open market source of drugs used 
by states for executions is now closed, resulting in execution delays in 
several states.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-capital punishment Criminal Justice 
Legal Foundation, said states still have options in finding the drugs used in 
executions.

He noted that states will still be able to buy chemicals by special order for 
executions from compounding pharmacies.

"Using compounding pharmacies is not going underground, they're legitimate 
businesses."

2 compounding pharmacies, The American Pharmacists Association and the 
International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, have already told their 
members to stop making the chemicals used in lethal cocktails.

The New York Times reports that some states have tried to import drugs not 
approved by the Food and Drug Administration but were seized by federal agents.

In 2015, Texas and Arizona ordered shipments of sodium thiopental from India, 
but those shipments were seized by federal authorities.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the number of executions has 
declined to just 28 in 2015, compared with 98 in 1999. Much of the decline can 
be attributed to companies like Pfizer that have taken a stand against using 
their drugs for lethal injections.

(source: inquisitr.com)