As the new year begins, there are sev­er­al notable events relat­ed to the death penal­ty like­ly to occur in the next few months. The first exe­cu­tion of the year is sched­uled for January 7 in Florida. The exe­cu­tion of Askari Muhammad had orig­i­nal­ly been sched­uled for December 3, 2013, but was stayed due to a chal­lenge to the state’s new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. The Florida Supreme Court approved the new pro­to­col, and the exe­cu­tion was resched­uled, though legal chal­lenges are con­tin­u­ing in fed­er­al court. Ohio has sched­uled the exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire for January 16, and the state plans to use a lethal injec­tion pro­to­col nev­er tried before in any state. Ohio will use mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone, drugs for­mer­ly list­ed in the state’s back­up pro­ce­dure. This lat­est change in Ohio was caused by a short­age of the drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal, after restric­tions on its use were imposed by its European man­u­fac­tur­er. On January 22, Texas is sched­uled to exe­cute Edgar Tamayo, a Mexican cit­i­zen who was denied con­sular access at the time of his arrest, in vio­la­tion of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Objections to the exe­cu­tion have been raised by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and by numer­ous oth­er gov­ern­ments. On March 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Hall v. Florida, a chal­lenge to Florida’s strict pro­ce­dure for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty in cap­i­tal cas­es. The Court pre­vi­ous­ly ruled that intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled defen­dants are barred from execution.

(Posted by DPIC, January 2, 2014). See Upcoming Executions, Lethal Injection, U.S. Supreme Court, and Intellectual Disability.

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