Missouri intends to carry out an execution Wednesday with drugs supplied by a pharmacy the state will not name, highlighting the growing lengths prisons are going to in order to buy lethal ingredients.
Campaigners have said that new lethal injection methods — being used after pharmaceutical firms refused to sell execution states their products — are unethical, unconstitutional and could amount to torture.
Moreover, as more drug-makers refuse to be part of the execution game, state officials are hiding the trail of their drug purchases — in some cases refusing to divulge the suppliers’ names or making purchases through petty cash and via seemingly defunct hospitals in order to disguise the paper trail.
“If you mask executions in a shroud of secrecy, vital oversight is lost,” Maya Foa, death penalty director for Reprieve, told Al Jazeera. “There is a risk that bad drugs could be used — and journalists, lawyers and the public would have no means of knowing what exactly is being injected into the prisoner.”
The scramble for drugs comes amid a backdrop of a drop in overall support for executions. According to a Gallup poll published last month, the number of Americans in favor of the death penalty is at its lowest point in over 40 years, with a 60 percent approval rating. It is down from a high of 80 percent in 1994.
In all, some 32 states currently have death penalty policies. Last week alone saw Florida and Texas proceed with the execution of convicted murderers. Ohio was scheduled to put a convicted child killer, Ronald Phillips, to death last Thursday, but a last-minute decision to stay the execution was made so that medical experts can assess whether or not his non-vital organs or tissues can be donated to his mother or possibly others.
But finding the means to carry out the ultimate sentence has become harder for execution states.
Source: Al Jazeera, November 18, 2013
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