Montana Judge Puts Executions on Hold

On October 6, Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock (pictured) held that the state’s proposed lethal injection protocol violated state law, which requires that an “ultra fast-acting barbiturate” be used in executions. Judge Sherlock said the proposed barbiturate, pentobarbital, does not qualify as such a drug.

The ruling stated, “The State of Montana is hereby enjoined from using the drug pentobarbital in its lethal injection protocol unless and until the statute authorizing lethal injection is modified in conformance with this decision.” In 2012, a judge struck down Montana’s three-drug protocol because it differed from the two-drug protocol called for in state law. As a result of the most recent ruling, executions in Montana will continue to be on hold indefinitely.

“The State has had multiple opportunities to correct the problems with the death penalty protocol. And each time they came up with a new flawed procedure,” said ACLU Legal Director Jim Taylor. “Seven years of litigation has demonstrated that Montana’s death penalty is broken beyond repair.” Montana has carried out three executions since 1976, the last of which was in 2006. Earlier in 2015, a bill to repeal the death penalty failed on a tie vote in the House of Representatives.

Most states had used sodium thiopental to render inmates unconscious before administering other lethal drugs. It was considered ultra fast acting, but its production for U.S. use was discontinued by the manufacturer.