Nevada death-row pris­on­er Scott Dozier (pic­tured), who unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried to force the state to exe­cute him, was found dead in his prison cell on January 5, 2019 of an appar­ent sui­cide. News reports indi­cat­ed that Dozier had hanged him­self. Dozier had told the court and sev­er­al reporters that he would rather die than spend life in prison and had attempt­ed to speed up his exe­cu­tion by drop­ping his appeals. However, his pri­or sui­cide attempt raised ques­tions about his men­tal state and his com­pe­ten­cy to waive appeals.

Dozier’s case gained nation­al atten­tion when Nevada pro­posed to exe­cute him with an untest­ed fen­tanyl-based drug com­bi­na­tion after it was unable to replace its expired sup­plies of the drugs autho­rized under its pri­or exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. He would have been the first per­son ever exe­cut­ed using fen­tanyl. Though stead­fast in seek­ing exe­cu­tion, Dozier ini­tial­ly allowed fed­er­al pub­lic defend­ers to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the new drug pro­to­col. That chal­lenge result­ed in two stays of exe­cu­tion in 2017, after the tri­al judge found that the use of the par­a­lyt­ic drug cisatracuri­um in com­bi­na­tion with diazepam (Valium) and fen­tanyl could cause Dozier to expe­ri­ence ​“air hunger” and suf­fo­cate to death, while mask­ing signs that he was con­scious and suf­fer­ing dur­ing the exe­cu­tion. The court autho­rized the exe­cu­tion if Nevada dropped the par­a­lyt­ic drug, but Nevada appealed, prompt­ing Dozier to write to the state judge who had halt­ed his exe­cu­tion that ​“I’ve been very clear about my desire to be exe­cut­ed … even if suf­fer­ing is inevitable.” Court fil­ings in a pri­or law­suit chal­leng­ing Dozier’s iso­la­tion in prison revealed that he had pre­vi­ous­ly attempt­ed sui­cide after hav­ing been denied recre­ation time, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with his fam­i­ly, and con­sul­ta­tion with his legal coun­sel. The state argued at that time that Dozier’s iso­la­tion was nec­es­sary to pro­tect him from self-harm.

The Nevada Supreme Court lat­er vacat­ed the low­er court’s stay order on pro­ce­dur­al grounds, clear­ing the way for a sec­ond death war­rant, which was issued in June 2018. Eight days before the July 11, 2018 exe­cu­tion, Nevada changed its drug for­mu­la again, and drug man­u­fac­tur­er Alvogen filed suit against the state for alleged­ly obtain­ing a sup­ply of its seda­tive, mida­zo­lam, ​“by sub­terfuge” to cir­cum­vent the company’s restric­tions against sales of its prod­ucts for use in exe­cu­tions. A Clark County District Judge halt­ed Dozier’s exe­cu­tion, agree­ing with Alvogen that Nevada had mis­rep­re­sent­ed its intend­ed use of the drugs and pur­chased them in ​“bad faith” through sub­terfuge. The court barred the state from using the drugs obtained from Alvogen in any exe­cu­tion. At the time of Dozier’s death, state pros­e­cu­tors had not yet decid­ed whether to appeal that order. Nevada prison offi­cials had recent­ly placed Dozier in soli­tary con­fine­ment, pur­port­ed­ly for self-protection.

(Ken Ritter, Nevada inmate whose exe­cu­tion called off found dead in cell, Associated Press, January 6, 2019; Maurice Chammah, Scott Dozier Still Wants to be Executed. And He’s Still Waiting., The Marshall Project, October 15, 2018; Merrit Kennedy, Nevada Postpones Planned Execution Using Fentanyl, NPR, July 11, 2018; Ken Ritter, Nevada court OKs exe­cu­tion of Scott Dozier, rejects chal­lenges on pro­ce­dure, Associated Press, May 11, 2018.) See Lethal Injection and Time on Death Row.

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