But Dr. Joe Cohen, a forensic pathologist, said injecting leftover drugs into dead bodies may distort postmortem toxicology results, thereby preventing the public from knowing what an inmate experienced during the execution.
What the overall fight is about:
The scarcity of lethal injection drugs has prompted concerns that states are turning to compounding pharmacies to concoct virtually unregulated lethal injections that may be more painful and slower to take effect than required by the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Oklahoma has bought lethal injection doses using petty cash accounts that allow the state to protect the identity and avoid scrutiny of its suppliers. Officials won’t say who manufactured and sold the drugs used in at least the last 11 executions, or whether the doses are pure enough to meet what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is an obligation to carry out the death penalty as humanely as possible.
In January, it botched an execution:
Michael Lee Wilson, after being injected with pentobarbital meant to knock him unconscious, was fully coherent when he said in the execution chamber that “I feel my whole body burning.” The corrections department refused to say where Wilson’s injection was made, who sold it to the state and whether it had been tested.
When drugs first became scarce in 2011 (due to the European manufacturers refusal to supply them in the U.S. for use in executions, which are outlawed in Europe), Oklahoma passed a secrecy law that states:
“The identity of all persons who participate in or administer the execution process and persons who supply the drugs, medical supplies or medical equipment for the execution shall be confidential and shall not be subject to discovery in any civil or criminal proceedings.”
Where did Wilson's drugs come from? No one will say:
[T]he state in 2012 bought 20 rounds of pentobarbital for $40,000 from an unknown supplier with a check from a petty cash account that shields the identity of the seller. It’s unclear whether the injections were made in a compounding pharmacy or whether a lack of oversight – compared to lethal injections sold by highly regulated pharmaceutical companies – led to the whole-body burning sensation Wilson described in the death chamber.
It's not just Oklahoma.
Unable to buy pentobarbital, Ohio used a never-before tried combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone during a January execution. The convict, Dennis McGuire, gasped and convulsed during his execution, which took about 24 minutes, according to media witnesses.
Pentobarbital from an unknown source was used in the June 2011 execution of Roy Willard Blankenship in Georgia. Blankenship’s eyes were open during the procedure, during which he grimaced in pain.
Why is Oklahoma buying so much of these substitute drugs? In addition to the drugs bought in 2012:
[In] August 2011, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections bought $10,400 worth of pentobarbital from an unknown supplier, using petty cash bills.
The state continued to buy bigger stashes of pentobarbital under the cloak of secrecy. It’s unclear why doses of pentobarbital from the $40,000 petty cash purchase in 2012 were unavailable for this month’s executions. Massie, the department spokesman, declined to discuss the ongoing legal matter.
What a revolting situation. Next week, a court in Oklahoma will hold a hearing on a challenge to the secrecy law, brought by the lawyers defending the next two inmates scheduled for state-sanctioned murder.
