Execution drug challenge survives, but Arkansas lacks doses

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Kelly P. Kissel, Associated Press
Updated 6:32 pm, Wednesday, July 12, 2017


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A medical supply company's challenge to Arkansas' three-drug execution protocol remains alive, though the state doesn't have enough drugs to put any inmate to death after four men died by lethal injection in April.

State lawyers argued unsuccessfully in the Pulaski County Courthouse on Wednesday that Arkansas was immune from a lawsuit brought by McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc., which doesn't want Arkansas to use its vecuronium bromide in executions and believes state officials purchased it last year under false pretenses. The company fears damage to its reputation and its bottom line if people believe its life-saving drugs are being used to kill.


"McKesson made a mistake but cannot unwind the transaction," senior assistant attorney general Jennifer L. Merrittargued. Suing the state was not a solution, she said.
. . .

The supply company initially raised its arguments in April, saying it learned too late that the Arkansas Department of Correction intended to use its product during an aggressive series of executions that month. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray granted a preliminary injunction halting its use, but the state Supreme Court dissolved the ruling. Arkansas subsequently executed four men, using McKesson's paralytic lethal-injection drug as the second step of a three-drug process.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Arkansas-judge-holds-hearing-on-ownership-of-11284098.php

[Midnight Writer]

1. I don't understand this issue. As a long time pet owner, I have a few times had to show mercy

I hold my pet, the vet gives it a shot, and the cat/dog nestles into me and peacefully fall asleep, and then stops breathing.

Am I to understand that there is no way to end the life of a human as "humanely"? What's with the "three drug process"? You can't find something simpler?

Wouldn't, for example, a massive dose of Oxycontin or something be better than these apparently painful, traumatic spectacles.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. No reputable manufacturer will knowingly provide drugs for this purpose

Most drugs used in lethal injections in the United States are obtained through deception.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Why does the manufacturer need to be reputable? Isn't this a niche market for, say, Skrelli?

He could charge 10 million a shot.

It would be cheaper than the legal fees the death penalty states are surely paying out to keep the death train rolling.

[maveric]

4. Why don't they just use heroin?

A big shot and death in three minutes or so.