Colorado's instructions for putting prisoners to death by lethal injection have been revised to include an alternate drug, underscoring problems states face in carrying out executions, the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday.
The ACLU released a copy of the state Department of Corrections execution protocol, which it obtained after filing a lawsuit against the department.
The protocol, which was heavily redacted, included a list of 3 drugs to be used for executions, along with an alternate for 1 of the drugs, sodium pentothal.
The protocol said pentobarbital can be used instead.
That's a change from a 2011 version of the protocol, said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU in Colorado.
"The change might reflect the difficulty the Department of Corrections was having in procuring the drug that they had listed earlier," he said.
It also underscores the obstacles to carrying out executions that don't subject inmates to cruel and unusual punishment, Silverstein said.
If prison personnel have problems getting enough of the 1st drug into an inmate's blood, the subsequent drugs can cause excruciating pain, he said.
That raises other questions about the training and qualification of the execution team, he said.
The ACLU opposes capital punishment.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Adrienne Jacobson said she couldn't confirm whether the execution protocol had changed since 2011, but she acknowledged sodium pentothal has become difficult to get.
She said state law allows the use of an alternate that's as effective or more effective than sodium pentothal. She said a federal appeals court has upheld the use of pentobarbital, the alternate drug on Colorado's list, for use in executions.
Colorado's death penalty came under scrutiny this year when it appeared that Nathan Dunlap, convicted of the 1993 slayings of 4 people in a pizza restaurant, would be executed. But Gov. John Hickenlooper granted Dunlap an indefinite reprieve, citing questions about the fairness of the death penalty in Colorado and problems in acquiring the lethal drugs.
Source: Associated Press, August 25, 2013
