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Feds confiscate lethal-injection drugs imported by 2 states

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Compounding the nation's severe shortage of execution drugs, federal authorities have confiscated shipments of a lethal-injection chemical that Arizona and Texas tried to bring in from abroad, saying such imports are illegal.

 

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it impounded orders of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that has been used in past executions in combination with drugs that paralyze the muscles and stop the heart. The anesthetic currently has no legal uses in the U.S.

 

"Courts have concluded that sodium thiopental for the injection in humans is an unapproved drug and may not be imported into the country," FDA spokesman Jeff Ventura said in a statement.

 

Arizona paid nearly $27,000 for the sodium thiopental, which federal agents intercepted when it arrived at the Phoenix airport in July, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

 

Texas and FDA authorities gave fewer details about the confiscation there. Texas is the nation's busiest death penalty state, with about 250 death row inmates and 530 executions carried out over the past four decades. It has used sodium thiopental in recent years.

 

The national shortage has become more acute over the past few years, ever since European companies started refusing to sell certain drugs to the U.S. Death penalty states have been scrambling to secure supplies, a search that in at least one case led to India and a forlorn-looking business in a residential neighborhood.

 

States have had to change drug combinations or put executions on hold while they look for other options. As backups, Tennessee brought back the electric chair and Utah the firing squad.

 

Other states also have looked into buying drugs internationally.

 

Ohio, which halted executions until at least 2017 because of drug shortage, told the FDA earlier this month it believes it can obtain a drug overseas without violating any laws.

 

Nebraska ran afoul of the FDA in May when the agency said it could not legally import sodium thiopental and a second lethal-injection chemical it bought for $54,400 from Harris Pharma, a distributor in India. That shipment apparently never made it to the United States.

 

"Just wanted to let you know have a few states who have already ordered sodium thiopental. Would Nebraska be interested as I will have a few thousand vials extra," Chris Harris, CEO of Harris Pharma, wrote in April to Nebraska officials, who released the correspondence under a public records request.

 

Harris did not name those states, and no one answered the door at the residential address in Kolkata, India, that is listed as the firm's office.

 

Key details are blacked out of the Arizona documents, which were released as part of a lawsuit against the corrections department over transparency in executions.

 

While it is not clear what company the state was doing business with, the paperwork for the purchase resembles the Nebraska paperwork involving Harris Pharma down to the font and formatting.

 

Maurie Levin, an attorney who has challenged Texas' death row practices, questioned why any state would want to run the risk of a botched execution by buying drugs from an overseas supplier whose manufacturing standards are not well-known.

 

Officials in Arizona said they believe the drugs impounded there are legal.

 

"The department is contesting FDA's legal authority to continue to withhold the state's execution chemicals," Corrections Department spokesman Andrew Wilder said.

 

In Texas, the Department of Criminal Justice said it went through proper federal channels, obtaining an import license from the Drug Enforcement Administration and notifying FDA and Customs. Department spokesman Jason Clark said the state is awaiting a decision from the FDA on the legal status of the imports.

 

Executions have been put on hold in Arizona since the drawn-out death in July 2014 of Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her father. Authorities later revealed he was given 15 doses of midazolam and a painkiller. He was supposed to die with one dose.

 

Arizona, which has 118 death row inmates, announced Friday it is adding another drug combination and making executions more transparent for reporters and inmate attorneys.

 

The state also announced it's seeking to resume a federal lawsuit filed by a group of death row inmates, including Wood. The lawsuit was filed in June 2014, but both parties agreed to put it on hold. The state can't seek execution warrants until that lawsuit is resolved.

 

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Tiddy-bits:

why don't they just shoot them? double tap to the head is a lot cheaper and faster than lethal injection. is it seen as inhumane or something? i'd rather get shot in the head a couple times to make sure i'm dead than have my heart stopped

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why don't they just shoot them? double tap to the head is a lot cheaper and faster than lethal injection. is it seen as inhumane or something? i'd rather get shot in the head a couple times to make sure i'm dead than have my heart stopped

Because it's "barbaric".  We as humans have evolved beyond such primitive and dull acts of violence!   Yes, we kill people by injecting expensive bullshit into them.  Much more civilized.

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why don't they just shoot them? double tap to the head is a lot cheaper and faster than lethal injection. is it seen as inhumane or something? i'd rather get shot in the head a couple times to make sure i'm dead than have my heart stopped

 

 

Because it's "barbaric".  We as humans have evolved beyond such primitive and dull acts of violence!   Yes, we kill people by injecting expensive bullshit into them.  Much more civilized.

 

What Skeezix said, and on top of that, the firing squad doesn't often like it.  The thought that you might have just killed a human being isn't one to help you sleep, even if you use a squad with 5 blanks and 1 bullet.

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What Skeezix said, and on top of that, the firing squad doesn't often like it.  The thought that you might have just killed a human being isn't one to help you sleep, even if you use a squad with 5 blanks and 1 bullet.

 

I wasn't talking about a firing squad. I don't even support execution, I'm just saying there are cheaper, more efficient ways to do it that involve a much quicker death (bullets are cheap and go fast).

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I wasn't talking about a firing squad. I don't even support execution, I'm just saying there are cheaper, more efficient ways to do it that involve a much quicker death (bullets are cheap and go fast).

 

Technically speaking, it's cheaper to execute people by guillotine than it is by injection, lethal gas, electric chair, and probably even firing squad(guns cost money, yo, and bullets are a repeat investment, whereas a guillotine, the only repeat investment is cleaning staff).  So why don't we use guillotines?

 

Because people are too sensitive to have mutilated bodies in funeral caskets.

 

That's pretty much the reason we prefer lethal injection.  It doesn't leave anything funny, like bullet holes, or chopped heads, or burnt hair, and it's also generally considered humane because the anaesthetic knocks the person to be executed out while they're dying.  Supposedly painless.

 

Guillotine, firing squad, and electric chair share a lot of buildup in tension, too.  In the moments before the execution, both prisoner and spectators are nervously awaiting the moment of finality with tension thick enough to cut through.  The prisoner may expect some form of incredibly harsh pain(particularly with the chair) immediately before death, and the spectators know and either anticipate or dread the after-death twitching, and possibly the twitching in mid-death throes.

 

Let's not even talk about hanging.  That is barbaric.

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Good thing the federal government gets to tell state governments what is and isn't allowed inside those states.
 

Let's not even talk about hanging.  That is barbaric.

That's actually false; I spent a lot of time reading about different death methods just last week, and execution hanging (also called drop hanging) instantly paralyzes the person. At the bottom of the drop the rope snaps taut and the knot is pulled up, pushing their head back and severing the spinal cord (the knot is placed under the jaw, and its physical shape is what does the work). Then the unconscious person dies of decreased blood flow to the brain if done completely properly, or asphyxiation if done slightly incorrectly (however both are painless as the person is deeply unconscious). Far more civilized and painless than the guillotine, where even when done as smoothly as possible, people can be fully conscious after decapitation.

Short drop hanging can be nasty, but that's never what people are talking about when they refer to executions.


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Good thing the federal government gets to tell state governments what is and isn't allowed inside those states.

Good thing the federal government is trying to preserve its citizens' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Executions should be ended for pragmatic reasons - moral ones don't even need to come into the picture.

 

Executions have nothing to do with saving money on room & board, or freeing up space in prisons. There are only a few people up for execution, and the repeated appeals process clogs the courts and wastes far more taxpayer money than food for 3,002 inmates. (Which they get for most of this process anyway.)

 

To save money, you either stop executions (like the rest of the civilized world) or make them more expedient by restricting the ability of inmates on death row to appeal. (Yikes!)

 

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Wow, look what we have in common with the Middle East! No wonder we like those guys so much. /s

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Before I get to executions, I'd point out that you're ignoring assisted suicide, which is legal in many states. Regardless of this specific article, these restrictions would also apply to drugs being brought in for those reasons.

Good thing the federal government is trying to preserve its citizens' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

How do you figure that the exact same rights apply to those convicted of crimes? They have rights but they don't have every right; we lock them up, for instance.

Executions should be ended

Well just so we're clear, the article wasn't talking about the federal government attempting to stop executions, it was enforcing a drug import regulation. I don't mind discussing it though.

To save money, you either stop executions (like the rest of the civilized world) or make them more expedient by restricting the ability of inmates on death row to appeal. (Yikes!)

The third option being, of course, limiting appeals and using execution only in cases with extreme evidence (clear video footage for example); it could also be used in cases where the convicted is facing a life sentence, giving them a choice between that or a death sentence.

Wow, look what we have in common with the Middle East! No wonder we like those guys so much. /s

Government executions themselves don't add to what makes the Middle East dangerous, it's the fact that the governments there usually don't care if you're innocent.

And come on, bruh:

>thing I disagree with

>find negative place on map to associate it with

You know you're above that.

The bottom line is that if the justice system were less bureaucratic, we'd get a lot more justice regardless of the legality of executions.


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/s for sarcasm bruh

 

A consistent vocal minority constantly rides Obama's ass for being a closet Muslim who wasn't born here.

 

I'm optimistic for the Middle East in the long run... hopefully not the very very long run. Young Iranians are a significant ideological shift. The supreme leader Khamenei is a hard-liner, but Rouhani is moderate and open to cooling of US-Iran relations.


How do you figure that the exact same rights apply to those convicted of crimes? They have rights but they don't have every right; we lock them up, for instance.

Your right to swing your fist ends where someone else's nose begins... but we should try to maximize rights when we can. For criminals, that could mean isolating them from society without depriving them of life.


The bottom line is that if the justice system were less bureaucratic, we'd get a lot more justice regardless of the legality of executions.

Sounds great in theory... but I don't know how to go about making the justice system less bureaucratic.

 

I look at this particular issue in reverse. Suppose there was no death penalty, and then the government suggested beginning to use it. Can you imagine the outcry

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