An inves­ti­ga­tion by St. Louis Public Radio has revealed that Missouri has been admin­is­ter­ing Midazolam to inmates pri­or to their exe­cu­tion since November 2013. Midazolam is a seda­tive that was used in all three of this year’s most seri­ous­ly botched exe­cu­tions in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Missouri offi­cials had tes­ti­fied ear­li­er that the state had not used Midazolam in exe­cu­tions and did not plan to use it. New doc­u­ments, how­ev­er, show that the drug was giv­en to inmates as a seda­tive before the exe­cu­tion began, with­out the pres­ence of wit­ness­es. George Lombardi, direc­tor of the Missouri Department of Corrections, said the seda­tive could be giv­en before an exe­cu­tion at the request of the inmate, the state, or the exe­cu­tion team. In two cas­es, inmates were giv­en both Midazolam and val­i­um in quan­ti­ties that one med­ical expert, Dr. Karen Sibert, said would make it dif­fi­cult to arouse the pris­on­er, and would tend to cause some­one, ​“to be so deeply asleep that your air­way might obstruct.” Cheryl Pilate, an attor­ney who has rep­re­sent­ed sev­er­al death row inmates in Missouri, said, ​“It’s very dis­turb­ing that Midazolam hasn’t been dis­closed. State law requires drugs in pro­to­col to be dis­closed. There may be a seri­ous vio­la­tion of state law going on.” Noting that in at least one instance Midazolam was admin­is­tered about 10 min­utes before the exe­cu­tion wit­ness­es were ush­ered in, she added, ​“The pub­lic is denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness an exe­cu­tion through the press.”

(C. McDaniel, ​“Missouri Swore It Wouldn’t Use A Controversial Execution Drug. It Did.,” St. Louis Public Radio, September 2, 2014). See Lethal Injection and Missouri.

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