On Nov.19, a Davidson County judge ruled that Tennessee​’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, pos­si­bly delay­ing the exe­cu­tion of Stephen Michael West and oth­ers on death row. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who issued the rul­ing, said that the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure ​“allows for death by suf­fo­ca­tion while con­scious,” because it did not spec­i­fy a suf­fi­cient dosage for sodi­um thiopen­tal, the first of three drugs used in lethal injec­tions. In Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court decid­ed that Kentucky’s lethal injec­tion method was con­sti­tu­tion­al, although the deci­sion did not specif­i­cal­ly address the amount of sodi­um thiopen­tal used in exe­cu­tions, pro­vid­ed it was admin­is­tered prop­er­ly. Federal pub­lic defend­er Stephen Kissinger pre­sent­ed two med­ical experts who tes­ti­fied that autop­sies per­formed on exe­cut­ed inmates showed that con­cen­tra­tions of two of the drugs used in lethal injec­tions were too low to cause their intend­ed effect. Medical experts found that lev­els of sodi­um thiopen­tal (the first drug used) in all three autop­sies were too low to cause uncon­scious­ness and lev­els of potas­si­um chlo­ride (the final drug used) were not enough to stop the heart. UPDATE: Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dure, allow­ing West’s exe­cu­tion date to be set for Nov. 30.

In oth­er states: a fed­er­al court in Oklahoma approved the use of the anes­thet­ic pen­to­bar­bi­tal as the first of 3 drugs to be used in its exe­cu­tions. It would be used in place of sodi­um thiopen­tal, which is in short sup­ply. Oklahoma has an exe­cu­tion sched­uled on Dec. 16. Pentobarbital has been used in the euthana­sia of ani­mals. In Texas, the Attorney General has ruled that the source of the state’s lethal injec­tion drugs should be made pub­lic. Texas report­ed­ly has suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of sodi­um thiopen­tal for 39 exe­cu­tions, but the sup­ply has an expi­ra­tion date in March 2011. In California, the state has so far refused to divulge its source of sodi­um thiopen­tal. Arizona, which secured a sup­ply of this drug around the same time as California, obtained the drug from over­seas and car­ried out an exe­cu­tion. Litigation in the United Kingdom is seek­ing to block the expor­ta­tion of drugs used in exe­cu­tions after it was report­ed that U.S. states were acquir­ing sodi­um thiopen­tal from a British com­pa­ny. (Various news stories.)

In recent months, Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er of sodi­um thiopen­tal, announced it will not be able to pro­duce a new sup­ply until ear­ly 2011, due to a short­age of its active ingre­di­ents. Some states have been forced to halt or delay exe­cu­tions because their sup­plies of sodi­um thiopen­tal were expiring soon.

(K. Hall, ​“TN judge strikes down lethal injec­tion,” The Tennessean, November 20, 2010; N. Koppel, ​“Oklahoma Judge Okays Use of New Lethal Injection Drug,” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2010). See Lethal Injection and U.S. Supreme Court.

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