Georgia's top prison official is considering a plan that would allow the state to stick with a 3-drug combination for lethal injections by substituting a new drug for one seized by federal regulators in March, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The proposal, which is being considered by Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens, would allow the state to use pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental. The AP obtained the documents through an open records request. There is no timetable for a decision, said Georgia corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath.
State corrections officials have been working on the change since the Drug Enforcement Administration took Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental amid questions of whether the state circumvented the law to obtain the drug amid a nationwide shortage.
Earlier, state officials had visited Ohio, which uses only pentobarbital in lethal injections, and Oklahoma, which uses the sedative as part of a 3-drug combination, to study those procedures.
Most of the nation's 34 death penalty states have scrambled over the last year to find a new supplier of sodium thiopental since its sole manufacturer in the U.S. announced in January it will no longer make the drug. Several states postponed executions amid the shortage, and some have looked overseas to secure a supply.
Georgia's situation was made worse when the state had to surrender its stockpile of the drug after defense attorneys questioned whether the state properly registered with the DEA before importing the drug from London. Documents also show the drug was purchased from a London company that operates at the same address as a driving school.
State officials have said they don't have concerns about the quality of the sodium thiopental and that they are cooperating with investigators. Meanwhile, corrections officials have quietly begun laying the groundwork for a switch, collecting hundreds of pages of legal filings and other documents about the drugs, according to more than 1,000 pages of files reviewed by the AP.
The new procedure would require prison staffers to inject two syringes containing 2.5 grams of pentobarbital each into the death row inmate's bloodstream, followed by a syringe of saline to ensure a steady flow of the drug. After at least 5 minutes, staffers would then inject pancuronium bromide to paralyze the inmate and then potassium chloride to stop the heart.
The plan would also require officials to post a certificate from the DEA certifying the drugs were obtained legally at the medical room of the death chamber, which is housed in the Georgia State Prison in Jackson.
A switch would clear the way for Georgia to schedule the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, who was sentenced to die for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty Savannah police officer. The U.S. Supreme Court in March rejected his most recent legal appeal, but the state couldn't execute him because it didn't have the lethal injection drug.
The switch could also lead to legal challenges from defense attorneys and death penalty opponents. William Montross of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights said he hoped Georgia corrections officials consulted with medical authorities in developing the policy.
"This new protocol was developed without public scrutiny and is highly experimental," he said.
Source: Associated Press, May 6, 2011
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