Execution drug came from UK, California officials say

San Quentin's new
execution chamber

California corrections officials said Monday that they ordered a large dose of a scarce drug used in lethal injection executions from Britain, a revelation likely to spur legal challenges to death penalty cases.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is under court order to provide details to the American Civil Liberties Union by today explaining how it got the drug sodium thiopental.

Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton told The Bee on Monday that officials obtained two different doses of the drug for possible use in executions.

The 1st batch of 12 grams came from Arizona on Sept. 30, said Thornton, noting California was not charged for it.

The second batch of 521 grams was manufactured by Archimedes Pharma, a British company, and corrections officials paid $36,415 to obtain it, she said.

The shipment was approved by U.S. Customs and the Drug Enforcement Administration, Thornton said. It is on the East Coast awaiting release by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"We have followed all the proper procedures," Thornton said.

The origin of the drugs is the subject of a lawsuit by the ACLU's Northern California branch, which contends that it is illegal for corrections to use a foreign-produced drug in executions without FDA approval.

Natasha Minsker, the ACLU's death penalty project director in San Francisco, said corrections officials were violating the law by releasing the information Monday to reporters but not to the ACLU.

"Until we see the records, we don't know (if the drugs can legally be used in executions)," Minsker said. "We're still left with the same questions: Where are the records? How did they get these drugs? What are they hiding?"

FDA officials could not be reached late Monday, but the matter has delayed executions nationwide and become an international controversy.

Britain last week tightened rules governing the export of the drug to the United States, a move that came after California made its purchase.

Archimedes Pharma issued a statement Monday saying it "does not export the product to the U.S.," and it has no "information on any export of the product to the U.S."

The manner in which states have obtained supplies of the drug has become central to legal fights against executions in several states.

The drug is the 1st of 3 administered in a lethal injection execution and is designed to render an inmate unconscious. A 2nd drug paralyzes the inmate and a 3rd stops the heart.

California scrapped plans to execute convicted killer Albert Greenwood Brown on Sept. 30 because of a shortage of the drug, and executions in Arizona, Oklahoma and Tennessee have been halted over issues related to the drug shortage.

The only U.S. maker of the drug, Hospira Inc., has said it will not produce any more until early next year. That company also has said it opposes the drug's use in executions.

Source: Sacramento Bee, December 7, 2010

Prison officials await execution drug okay

State gets lethal chemical in U.K.

California corrections officials disclosed yesterday that they have imported a large quantity of the key drug used in lethal-injection executions and are awaiting approval of the British-made product by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation last month paid a British distributor $36,415 for 521 grams of sodium thiopental made by Archimedes Pharma, said department spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

Prison officials also acquired 12 grams of the drug at no cost from the Arizona Department of Corrections on Sept. 30, Thornton said.

That stock of the 1st drug used in a 3-injection sequence would be sufficient to put to death about 90 condemned prisoners by the state's practices, which require 3 grams of sodium thiopental per execution plus an equivalent amount as emergency backup. But some of the drug is also needed for training purposes, Thornton noted, reducing the potential impact of the new supply.

A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental has forced execution delays in several capital-punishment states.

Source: Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2010

Documents show California's worldwide execution drug search

San Quentin's new
execution chamber & gurney

SAN FRANCISCO -- The e-mail from one California prison official to another almost reads like something out of a spy novel: "May have a secret and important mission for you."

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation undersecretary Scott Kernan sent that message to assistant secretary Anthony Chaus on Sept. 29. The "mission" turned out to be a trip to Arizona for a fresh supply of sodium thiopental, the so-called knock-out drug used in the state's three-drug lethal injection.

California's only batch was set to expire and the drug was in short supply - as the state's first execution in five years loomed.

In August, Kernan, Chaus and other officials began a desperate worldwide search over two months for the drug, according to nearly 1,000 pages of documents released late Wednesday.

Kernan needed Chaus to send "one of your So Cal guys" to the Arizona State Prison Complex to pick up 12 grams of sodium thiopental.

The next day, on Sept. 30, Warden Carson McWilliams in Florence, Ariz., handed a California prison agent 24 vials of it. The agent then drove more than eight hours to Gorman, where he handed the vials off to another CDCR agent to complete the trip to San Quentin Prison, which houses the state's death chamber.

The trip went through even though California authorities on Sept. 29 had called off the planned Sept. 30 execution of Albert Greenwood Brown because of an adverse court ruling connected to the expiration date of the sodium thiopental on hand.

California had earlier "loaned" Arizona pancuronium bromide, another vital ingredient in the lethal injection, so it could carry out an execution.

The documents on California's lethal injection drug search were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and posted on its Northern California chapter's website.

They detail the state's attempt to replace Illinois-based Hospira Inc. as a sodium thiopental supplier. Hospira, the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, ran into production problems that prevented it from delivering a fresh supply of the drug to California.

The state's only supply of the drug on hand expired on Oct. 1 and resolving legal challenges brought by the condemned inmate would delay his execution beyond that date, leaving the state attorney general's office no choice but to halt its attempts to proceed with the execution.

The office said the state won't schedule any more executions until a federal lawsuit claiming the state's lethal injection process is unconstitutional is resolved.

Most of the documents are internal e-mails that show California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials scrambling to find a new supplier beginning in August because of the problems at Hospira, which led to a nationwide shortage of the drug in nearly every state that carries out lethal injections, except in Texas.

The e-mails show officials complaining about a Texas prison system - described in a local newspaper story as "well stocked" - apparently refusing to loan any sodium thiopental anywhere. Texas has executed 17 inmates this year and plans three more lethal injections by year's end.

"It is unfortunate that Texas would not share some of its 'well stocked' supply to help sister states but down the road they may need help in some other way and this position does not help their image," a Sept. 29 e-mail to Kernan states. "Nevertheless, in the prison business things are always changing and Texas is no exception."

The sender's name was blacked out by prison department lawyers before the e-mail was turned over the ACLU. It ends by saying "Sorry we were not able to help more."

Texas authorities were unavailable because of the late hour the documents were released.

California authorities called nearly 100 hospitals and even considered a supplier in Pakistan until acquiring 521 grams of the drug manufactured by Archimedes Pharma of Great Britain. The department still hasn't received the shipment, which is being held on the East Coast awaiting clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.

Thornton said Wednesday night that the documents highlight the department's determination to carry out the execution of Brown, who was convicted in Riverside County of raping and killing a high school student and then taunting her mother.

"We have always said we were actively seeking a new supply of sodium thiopental," Thornton said.

The department managed to scrounge 8 grams of the drug on Aug. 24 from a supplier not identified in the documents.

"It is enough to do one execution," Kernan told department Secretary Matt Cade in an e-mail. "Bad news is drug expires in Oct."

Source: newsobserver.com, December 9, 2010


Email reveals gallows humour on death row

Newly released documents show that top prison officials in California went begging to Arizona for a vital drug that is used in executing inmates on death row after its own supply ran out and then found an inappropriate form of words to express their gratitude when they got what they needed.

"You guys in AZ are life-savers," Scott Kernan, California's undersecretary for Corrections and Rehabilitation said in an email to his Arizona counterpart Charles Flanagan after taking delivery from him of a small amount of the knock-out drug sodium thiopental. "Buy you a beer next time I get that way."

The exchange, which suggests a remarkable blitheness about the business at hand, was contained in documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and made public yesterday.

An interruption in the supply of sodium thiopental has created difficulties for death chambers in several US states. Arizona and California have turned to a British drug-maker for new supplies after their traditional supplier in Illinois suffered production problems.

The batch of sodium thiopental donated by Arizona was meant to speed the execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl.

He is still on death row, pending a new legal challenge to the constitutionality of the use of lethal injections in California.

The new documents also show California prison officials chastising Texas for having plenty of sodium thiopental on hand but refusing to share. "It is unfortunate that Texas would not share some of its 'well-stocked' supply to help sister states, but down the road they may need help in some other way and this position does not help their image," one officials said in a 29 September email to Mr Kernan.

Source: The Independent, December 9, 2010