Lethal Injection

Taberon Honie was an American Indian from the Hopi-Tewa com­mu­ni­ty whose life was marked by pover­ty, sub­stance abuse, and gen­er­a­tional trau­ma. His par­ents were forced to attend Indian board­ing schools, which were noto­ri­ous­ly abu­sive and designed to strip Indian chil­dren of their cul­tur­al her­itage. They lat­er suf­fered from alco­holism and neglect­ed Mr. Honie and his sib­lings. Mr. Honie first tried alco­hol at age 5 and pro­gressed to hero­in and meth by the time he was a teenager.

On August 23, 2024, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced that the state supreme court has set a September 20, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for Freddie Owens, which would be the first exe­cu­tion in South Carolina since 2011. Mr. Owens was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the killing of a con­ve­nience store clerk in Greenville, South Carolina and he was lat­er con­vict­ed in the mur­der of a cell­mate. In a July 31^st rul­ing, the South Carolina Supreme Court decid­ed that the…

A July 10, 2024, National Public Radio (NPR) inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that Rite Away, a small chain of phar­ma­cies locat­ed around San Antonio and Austin, Texas, com­pound­ed and pro­vid­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) between 2019 and late 2023 to car­ry out lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. During the same time peri­od, records at the Texas Board of Pharmacy and fed­er­al Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) indi­cate the phar­ma­cy was cit­ed for mul­ti­ple safe­ty and…

Connecticut-based com­pa­ny Absolute Standards, which was iden­ti­fied as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs used in 13 fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in 2020 and 2021, has said it will no longer pro­duce the drug used in exe­cu­tions — pen­to­bar­bi­tal. In a let­ter to two Connecticut law­mak­ers, John Criscio, pres­i­dent of Absolute Standards, said the com­pa­ny ceased pro­duc­ing pen­to­bar­bi­tal in December 2020, and has ​“no inten­tion to resume any pro­duc­tion or sale of pen­to­bar­bi­tal.” Mr. Criscio’s let­ter explains that…