PHOENIX, Ariz. – The Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix filed documents in U.S. District Court furthering allegations that the Arizona Department of Corrections repeatedly violated its own rules in executing death-row prisoners and knowingly obtained its execution drugs illegally.
In July, Public Defender's Office attorneys sued Arizona on behalf of Thomas West, who was executed two days later, and five other death-row inmates. The lawsuit asks for an injunction to prevent the state from performing executions until it can prove it is in compliance with the established protocol for performing them.
The state has asked the court to throw out the claim that its execution drugs were not legal because none of the named plaintiffs will actually be executed using those drugs.
Monday's response by public defenders to that state motion details how the state Department of Corrections ignored advice to steer clear of a certain British drug exporter because it was not licensed to export the specific drugs used in executions. In fact, at the time, foreign sources of one of the drugs was not approved.
A former U.S. Food and Drug Administration attorney who now advises companies on FDA procedures offered testimonial for the public defenders, saying the drugs were unapproved and illegally brought into the country, and that a local FDA official had advised the department to split the drugs into smaller shipments so that they would pass through U.S. customs with little or no scrutiny.
Source: USA Today, November 9, 2011
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