Drug shortage could delay executions in Florida

Florida's electric chair

The decision by an Illinois drug company to stop producing a drug used in Florida executions could lead to delays.

The nearly 400 men and women sitting on Florida's death row may have received a stay of execution -- at least temporarily -- from an unexpected source.

An Illinois pharmaceutical company announced Friday it will discontinue the production of a drug used in Florida lethal injections, creating far-reaching obstacles -- and delays -- for the state's backed-up execution system, experts say.

With a four-paragraph statement on its website Friday announcing it would "exit the sodium thiopental market,'' Hospira Inc. changed how convicted felons would be put to death across the nation, including here in Florida.

Sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, is 1 of the 3 drugs used by the state during lethal injections. Hospira was the only U.S. maker of the anesthetic.

When reserves of the drug are exhausted, Florida will need to find an alternative method, and opponents of capital punishment are already sensing an opening.

"The state could change the procedure tomorrow, but it would likely be challenged,'' said Mark Elliott, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "That's the reason they haven't changed the [3-drug] procedure yet.''

Efforts to reach representatives from Gov. Rick Scott's office for comment were unsuccessful Saturday.

While it is not clear what step the state will take next, it has several options. Florida could find alternatives to sodium thiopental in the international market. It could scrap the 3-drug cocktail altogether for a 1-drug method.

And one other, long-shot option exists: Florida could return to the primary use of the electric chair, which is still a possibility left open to condemned inmates.

"It will affect different states differently,'' said Richard Dieter, an anti-death penalty advocate based out of Washington. "I don't think anybody's going back to hangings. They're going to have to recalculate things.''

Lethal injection has been the state's preferred method since 2000, when the Florida Legislature changed the law.

But issues remain. The state's lethal injection practices have been scrutinized since Angel Diaz's botched execution in December 2006, a procedure that took 34 minutes when the needles went straight through his veins.

That prompted a death-penalty moratorium in Florida; then-Gov. Jeb Bush called for an investigation. Changes in the state's lethal injection protocol were made, and former Gov. Charlie Crist began signing death warrants again in July 2007.

The next spring, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection, the nation's leading method of execution, in a 7-2 ruling.

Still, executions in the state have been few and far between. The state has put to death just 5 convicts in the last 5 years, most recently Martin Grossman last February. Grossman, convicted of murdering Wildlife Officer Margaret "Peggy'' Park in 1984, was the 69th person executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated here in 1979. He was the 25th killed by lethal injection.

According to the Department of Corrections website, just 1 of the 392 men and women now on death row have an active warrant death: Robert Trease, and his sentence is under appeal.

Source: Miami Herald, January 24, 2011

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