Executions have been on hold in Kentucky since 2010, when Franklin Circuit Judge Philip Shepherd began a review of the state’s lethal injection protocol. The state revised its protocol in 2012 to call for a one-drug method, with a two-drug method as a backup if specific drugs were not available. Now, that new protocol is also being scrutinized because it calls for the same drugs that caused the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in Ohio. Corrections officials say they don’t know if any lethal injection drugs would be available, because the Department of Corrections is currently, “prohibited from taking any steps regarding execution — and this would include the purchase of the drugs, so we don’t know if they are available because we haven’t tried to purchase.” David Barron, an attorney representing five inmates on death row, called the Ohio execution, “an utter disaster,” and said that Kentucky’s plan to use a smaller dose is, “not enough to prevent the condemned person from feeling pain.” Earlier this year, Republican state Representative David Floyd proposed a bill to repeal the death penalty in Kentucky, saying “The government needs to be infallible when it comes to killing people and it’s not,” adding, “The alternative of life in prison is much more cost effective.”

(J. Riley, “Flawed executions in other states cause more death penalty scrutiny in Kentucky,” WDRB, May 30, 2014.) See Lethal Injection and Recent Legislation.

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