Arkansas plans to begin putting prisoners to death with a drug that apparently has never been used in a U.S. execution, and lawyers for condemned inmates warn that it could take longer for someone to die than with other lethal injection drugs.
The state doesn't have any scheduled executions, but Arkansas Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it plans to use phenobarbital, along with lorazepam, to kill condemned prisoners.
Both phenobarbital and lorazepam are used to relieve anxiety. Phenobarbital, which is a barbiturate or a kind of depressant drug, is also used to control seizures.
In a letter obtained by the AP, federal public defender Jenniffer Horan told Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe that phenobarbital takes effect more slowly than other drugs used to execute prisoners and that it carries a "substantial risk of a lingering and inhumane death."
"No state has ever used Phenobarbital in a lethal injection procedure, and for good reason," wrote Horan, whose office represents a number of Arkansas death row inmates. "Throughout the history of lethal injection, states have preferred ultra-short-acting barbiturates that cause rapid unconsciousness and death. Phenobarbital, however, has a long onset of action."
The Death Penalty Information Center's executive director, Richard Dieter, also said phenobarbital has never been used in U.S. executions.
Arkansas' last execution was in 2005. The state is seeking to resume executions after legislators this year rewrote an execution law that the state Supreme Court struck down in 2012.
Source: Associated Press, April 16, 2013
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