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  1. #251
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Abbott: Texas can keep execution drug source secret

    Texas’ prison system doesn’t have to reveal where it gets its execution drugs, the state attorney general said Thursday, marking a reversal by the state’s top prosecutor on an issue being challenged in several death penalty states.

    Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor in the nation’s busiest death penalty state, had rebuffed three similar attempts by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice since 2010. His decision can be appealed to the courts.

    The department argues that the compounding pharmacy providing the drug should remain secret in order to protect it from threats of violence. Lawyers for death row inmates say they need its name to verify the drugs’ potency and protect inmates from cruel and unusual punishment.

    Similar legal fights are ongoing in other death penalty states, including Oklahoma and Missouri, but courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have yet to halt an execution based on a state’s refusal to reveal its drug supplier. The secrecy argument also was used ahead of a bungled execution last month in Oklahoma, though that inmate’s faulty veins, not the execution drug, were cited as the likely culprit.

    The issue has put Abbott in a thorny position during an election year in Texas, where the death penalty is like gun rights: Candidates don’t get in the way of either. Holding firm would please death penalty opponents, who prison officials say want to target drug suppliers with protests and threats; reversing course goes against his vows of government transparency.

    But his Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, can’t easily exploit the issue. Portraying the law-and-order Abbott, who has been attorney general since 2003, as soft on crime would be implausible. She has said the information should be public.

    Abbott’s latest decision is expected to be appealed, meaning it likely won’t take immediate effect.

    It stems from an open records request filed ahead of the April executions of serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells and convicted killer Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas. Texas prison officials were using a new supply of pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, but they refused to name the supplier. The inmates’ attorneys said that violated the inmates’ rights and asked Abbott to step in. They made similar arguments in court, but those appeals were turned down.

    The Associated Press also has filed a request for information about the compounding pharmacy under the Texas Public Information Act.

    Death penalty states have been scrambling to find new sources of drugs after several drugmakers, including many based in Europe, refused to sell drugs for use in lethal injections. That’s led several states to compounding pharmacies, which are not as heavily regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as more conventional pharmacies.

    Unlike some states, Texas law doesn’t specifically say whether prison officials must disclose where they get their lethal injection drugs.

    Abbott rejected the same kind of security concerns in a 2012 opinion, ruling that the benefits of transparent government outweighed the prison system’s objection. But in March, his office argued in court that the threatening environment faced by companies supplying execution drugs had worsened.

    If Abbott’s latest decision is appealed, it could eventually land in the Texas Supreme Court. There’s no timetable on such appeals, but they could “take a while,” South Texas College of Law professor Charles Rhodes said. He said the courts will have the final say.

    http://kxan.com/2014/05/29/official-...source-secret/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #252
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Missouri official proposes execution drug lab

    Missouri should establish its own laboratory to produce chemicals for use in executions rather than rely on an "uneasy cooperation" with medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies, the state's attorney general said Thursday.

    Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, spoke to the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis during the group's meeting at Lake of the Ozarks.

    "For Missouri to maintain lethal injection ... it is my belief the Legislature should remove market-driven participants and pressures from the system and appropriate funds to establish a state-operated, DEA-licensed, laboratory to produce the execution chemicals in our state," said Koster, according to a transcript provided by his office.

    A state-operated execution drug lab would be a first, and it isn't clear if it could be implemented through a simple change in Missouri's protocol or if legislative approval would be necessary. Messages seeking comment from officials with the Department of Corrections and the Attorney General's office were not returned.

    Lethal injection has come under increased scrutiny since April, when an Oklahoma inmate's vein collapsed and he died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the execution process began.

    Missouri is among several states that purchase execution drugs in secret from compounding pharmacies, the process shielded by state law. The Associated Press and four newspapers filed suit earlier this month in an effort to have the process made public.

    "As a matter of policy, Missouri should not be reliant on merchants whose identities must be shielded from public view or who can exercise unacceptable leverage over this profound state act," Koster said.

    Missouri has executed four men this year. Only Texas, with seven, and Florida, with five, have performed more executions. But the May 21 execution of Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew was postponed when the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to a federal appeals court. It isn't clear when, or if, the execution will be rescheduled.

    Bucklew has a rare medical condition, with malformed veins and tumors in his face. His attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said in court filings that he could suffer during the lethal injection process.

    Pilate lauded Koster for recognizing the need for more transparency but questioned his idea.

    "The proposal for creating a state lab appears to be off the cuff and leaves many unanswered questions, including regulation of the lab, public oversight, even what protocol the state would be using," Pilate said.

    Koster told the bar association that there is no state power "more daunting or irrevocable" than carrying out the death penalty.

    "Lethal injection relies upon an uneasy cooperation between medical professionals who assist in the executions, pharmaceutical companies that provide the chemicals, and the state that is ultimately responsible for coordination of executions and on whose legal authority the process is carried out," Koster said.

    Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2014/05...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #253
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    I was wondering when one of the states would come up with this. I can imagine what the antis will find wrong.

  4. #254
    Moderator mostlyclassics's Avatar
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    Does anyone know what it would cost to set up a compounding laboratory to make LI chemicals? Clearly, you don't need a full compounding pharmacy setup, capable of making just about anything.

    Assuming a one-drug protocol with just pentobarbital the chemical compounded, I can't believe it'd be very expensive. Maybe less than a couple of hundred grand? States are blowing that much in legal fees per execution.

    Something to investigate . . .

    [added later, after scuttling around the internet:]

    Alternatively, you can buy bottles of Sedal-Vet, which is pentobarbital, in Tijuana for about $30.00 each. A quote from Final Exit, 3rd edition, found here:

    "Fast-acting and very lethal. The premiere drug for self deliverance. An antiemetic also required [so you don't blow chunks, but I'd guess this doesn't matter if you're injecting it], and alcohol makes more effective"... (also) "An extremely lethal euthanasic for humans"... "Each bottle contains 6.5 grams. One bottle will kill in about two hours, two bottles will be almost immediately lethal. The taste is revolting. Some gulp it down and then take a swing of their favorite alcohol. Others dilute it with fruit juice laced with packets of artificial sugar. With this powerful drug, the ground rules of a small meal two hours beforehand, plus lots of antiemetics for twelve hours previously, absolutely must be followed..."
    The border is only a Greyhound bus ride away . . .
    Last edited by mostlyclassics; 05-29-2014 at 07:35 PM.

  5. #255
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Maybe we should all pitch in and open one.

  6. #256
    Senior Member Frequent Poster schmutz's Avatar
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    If you want a crude preparation (barbaturic acid) all you need to do is take a leak on a beet; perhaps the best synthetic route to pentobarbital is still under patent but it should be fairly doable by anyone who did well in a second-year organic chem class.

  7. #257
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaveP View Post
    Maybe we should all pitch in and open one.
    I still say a bullet is easier and cheaper!

  8. #258
    Senior Member Frequent Poster schmutz's Avatar
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    How much do the shooters get? Only figure I've seen was $75, but that was the last pre-Furman.

  9. #259
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    I'm sure plenty of law enforcement would do it for free or almost nothing. And they can bring their own guns!

  10. #260
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    New front for death penalty debate: Pharmacy rules

    In a new tactic, death penalty opponents are lobbying state health regulators to prohibit pharmacists from mixing the drugs for lethal injection.

    They started Wednesday in Minnesota, where capital punishment doesn't exist and where there isn't evidence pharmacists are supplying any execution drugs. The push is driven by concern that unproven drugs have caused botched executions and a belief that pharmacists are duty-bound to promote well-being rather than aid in death.

    Minnesota's Board of Pharmacy opened its discussion but postponed any action until September to give people on both sides of the issue time to make their case. Even then, board executive director Cody Wiberg said his preference would be to let the Legislature decide next year given the controversial nature.

    "Just because we don't have a death penalty and you might get a more sympathetic ear than a state like Texas, it does not mean it will be an easy row to hoe," Wiberg told The Associated Press after the hearing.

    Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911 and lawmakers turned back an effort to reinstate it a decade ago.

    That helped draw the attention of Kelsey Kauffman, a retired-teacher-turned-activist from Indiana who took up the cause after learning that national codes of ethics don't specifically prevent pharmacists from assisting in executions. Kauffman and her allies, including Amnesty International USA, plan to approach licensing boards in Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin next in hopes of eventually building a critical mass.

    "Until the past year pharmacists had no role to play in executions. That's why it's a big issue now," she said. "There's nothing that's stopping death penalty states from getting their drugs from non-death penalty states."

    Capital punishment states are in pursuit of new supplies after several drugmakers — many based in Europe — stopped selling drugs for use in lethal injections. They've looked to compounding pharmacies to help fill the void.

    In execution-leading Texas, state officials refuse to disclose where they get drugs used in lethal injections. In neighboring Oklahoma, where state officials are investigating an execution that went awry in April, a pharmacy regulator said health boards don't belong in the death penalty debate.

    "We haven't even considered it," said Cindy Hamilton, with the Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy. "I think that's a political issue, and it's not our job to get into political issues."

    Gay Dodson, executive director of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, also was dubious.

    "Texas is such a proponent of using the death penalty, I don't think it would get through the Legislature, but who knows?"

    The proposal presented to Minnesota officials is aimed at compounding pharmacies, which custom-make drug preparations, not neighborhood drug stores. Since death penalty drugs are injected, they could only be made at a small handful of them in Minnesota that are licensed to make sterile preparations, or perhaps at hospital pharmacies. Wiberg said he would be surprised if any Minnesota compounding pharmacies were doing so but couldn't say so with certainty.

    Steve Anderson, owner of The Apothecary Compounding Pharmacy in Sartell, does sterile compounding but said he probably wouldn't want to make death penalty drugs.

    "I would have a problem compounding medications for that use. Just my Christian background. It probably wouldn't be something that I would agree to anyway," Anderson said.

    http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S3471551.shtml?cat=300
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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