A report released by Amnesty International in July looks at recent devel­op­ments in the lethal injec­tion con­tro­ver­sy in the U.S. and pro­vides an overview of the death penal­ty since it was rein­stat­ed in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia. Amnesty’s report, enti­tled ​“An Embarrassment of Hitches: Reflections on the Death Penalty, 35 Years After Gregg v. Georgia, As States Scramble for Lethal Injection Drugs,” begins with a dis­cus­sion of a law­suit filed by attor­neys for Arizona death row inmate Donald Beaty against fed­er­al author­i­ties for allow­ing the impor­ta­tion of sodi­um thiopen­tal from inter­na­tion­al sources in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law. The Arizona Department of Corrections announced the evening before Beaty’s exe­cu­tion that they would switch to pen­to­bar­bi­tal in order to avoid legal ques­tions about the use of sodi­um thiopen­tal, which they had obtained from over­seas. The report con­cludes, ​“The USA’s inter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion on the death penal­ty has become more and more acute. It is even impact­ing the scram­ble by author­i­ties in the USA as they try to fix their lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols to take account of the short­age of one of the ingre­di­ents they had become used to employ­ing in their death cham­bers. The USA now faces not just oppo­si­tion from oth­er gov­ern­ments to its con­tin­u­ing use of the death penal­ty, but also from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies that man­u­fac­ture drugs for patient care – not for killing pris­on­ers.” Read full report.

(Amnesty International, ​“An Embarrassment of Hitches: Reflections on the Death Penalty, 35 Years After Gregg v. Georgia, As States Scramble for Lethal Injection Drugs,” July 2011). Read more Studies on the death penalty.

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