NEWS (4/​7/​20) — Nevada: A tri­al-court judge in Las Vegas has dis­missed a law­suit filed by drug­mak­ers against the Nevada prison sys­tem after state offi­cials agreed to return unused drugs it had obtained under false pre­tens­es in a failed attempt to exe­cute Scott Dozier in 2018. Pharmaceutical com­pa­nies Alvogen, Inc., Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA, and Sandoz Inc. reached a set­tle­ment with the state in which Nevada agreed to give back the drugs, which have expired, in exchange for a refund of their purchase price.

In 2018, Dozier — who had pre­vi­ous­ly attempt­ed to kill him­self in prison — waived his appeals in an effort to force the state to exe­cute him. Nevada prison offi­cials, hav­ing been noti­fied that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies would not sell the state drugs for use in exe­cu­tions, obtained the drugs by mis­lead­ing the drug­mak­ers about how their med­i­cines would be used. That action prompt­ed Alvogen to file a law­suit, joined by oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, to reclaim their med­i­cines. The state court found that Nevada had engaged in ​“bad faith” and ​“sub­terfuge” and barred the state from using Alvogen’s drugs in exe­cu­tions. The court’s order halt­ed Dozier’s exe­cu­tion, and he sub­se­quent­ly hanged him­self.

Attorney General Aaron Ford acknowl­edged after the deal that Nevada no longer has the drugs nec­es­sary to car­ry out an execution.

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