South Dakota buys death penalty drug

National shortage prompts purchase for 2 executions

South Dakota has bought a new supply of the drug that the state uses in executions because of reports of a national shortage.

Officials spent $5,000 to acquire enough sodium thiopental for the lethal injections of convicted killers Donald E. Moeller and Charles Russell Rhines. The drug is under storage at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls, said Sara Rabern, public information officer for the attorney general's office.

Moeller and Rhines have appeals pending. Neither has an execution date, but the state is preparing because of reports supply of the drug would run low.

"This is a proactive response to a national shortfall," Attorney General Marty Jackley said Wednesday. "We're not in a situation where we need to use it. But the main goal is to obtain the drug ... and to keep legal custody of it."

Death penalty opponents consider the purchase a chapter from the theater of the absurd.

"To run out and buy it to try to get the last item on the shelf is just grotesque," said Jeanne Koster of Watertown, former director of the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center.

Moeller was convicted of the 1990 rape and murder of 9-year-old Rebecca O'Connell of Sioux Falls.

Rhines was convicted of killing 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer in a 1992 burglary of the Rapid City doughnut shop where Schaeffer worked.

The state's last execution was in 2007, when Elijah Page died by injection for torturing and killing Chester Allan Poage in 2000 in Lawrence County. That was South Dakota's 1st execution since George Sitts died in 1947 in the electric chair. A judge also sentenced Briley Piper to death for his role in killing Poage, but the Supreme Court in 2009 sent his case back to circuit court for a jury to decide Piper's sentence.

Source: Argus Leader, April 7, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.