FEATURED POST

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Arizona switches drugs used for executions

Published
Arizona Death Chamber
Arizona Death Chamber
The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced this morning that it will change the drugs used to execute persons condemned to death.

The new drugs, a cocktail of a Valium-like drug called Midazolam and a morphine derivative called Hydromorphone, will replace the single barbiturate, pentobarbital, which has become unavailable because its manufacturer does not want it to be used to kill people.

Consequently, commercially manufactured pentobarbital supplies have dried up for corrections departments nationwide, forcing them to change drugs or to have them custom made by "compounding pharmacies."

There are four Arizona death row prisoners whose appeals have run out and who are eligible for execution. But the Attorney General's Office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for those prisoners because there were no drugs available to carry out the executions.

The Midazolam-Hydromorphone combination was used in January to perform an execution in Ohio, but not without problems. According to press accounts of that execution, the condemned man gasped for air and took more than 20 minutes to die. Arizona inmates executed with pentobarbital or an earlier drug, thiopental, which also is unavailable, usually die in about ten minutes.

The Attorney General's press release says Arizona will use a stronger concentration.

The press release also says that it will attempt to use a state statute that shields the identity of executioners to keep from revealing the source of the new drugs. That argument was knocked down in U.S. District Court in Phoenix last October.

In 2010, The Arizona Republic revealed that Arizona and other states were sidestepping federal laws to import the drug thiopental from England. Federal courts ruled that the drug had been illegally brought into the country. European courts also banned export of thiopental and other drugs for executions, which led European pharmaceutical companies to institute distribution controls on the drugs.

At least one American manufacturer of Midazolam and Hydromorphone has already said that it will refuse to sell those drugs for use in executions.

Source: AZ Central, March 26, 2014
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Kuwait | Six Executed, Female Convict Spared at Last Minute

Published
Image
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 5: This Thursday morning at exactly 7:00 am, the Criminal Execution Prosecution carried out the death penalty for six convicts at the Central Prison. Among those executed were three Kuwaiti citizens, two Iranians, and one Pakistani. However, the execution of a Kuwaiti woman, convicted of killing her friend, was withdrawn at the last moment after the victim's heirs accepted blood money and pardoned her. 
Read more

Idaho death row inmate Thomas Creech claims second execution attempt would violate Eighth Amendment

Published
Image
The execution of Thomas Creech failed in February when a prison medical team was unable to establish an IV line to carry out the lethal injection. BOISE, Idaho — After a failed execution in February, Idaho's longest-serving death row inmate said a second attempt to execute him would be "cruel and unusual punishment" - violating his Eighth Amendment rights.
Read more

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
Read more

South Carolina | Inmate asks to delay execution, says co-defendant who blamed him for killing had secret deal

Published
Image
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — An inmate set to be executed in South Carolina in three weeks wants the state Supreme Court to delay the execution so his lawyers can argue his co-defendant who testified against him lied about having no plea deal in exchange for his testimony. Attorneys for Freddie Owens also said in court papers filed late Friday that a juror saw an electronic stun device Owens had to wear in court to assure good behavior and a judge never talked about why he had to wear it.
Read more

Iran’s Top Court Upholds Death Penalty for Guard Volunteer over 2022 Protest Killing

Published
Image
TEHRAN: The Supreme Court of Iran has upheld a death sentence awarded to a member of the all-volunteer wing of the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who stormed a house during the 2022 protests over the death of Mahsa Amini and killed a 60-year-old man, said a lawyer on Tuesday. The capital punishment awarded to the Basij member marks a rare moment for Iran to hold accountable its security forces. It is pertinent to mention that more than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 were detained in the 2022 protests.
Read more

The New York Times Editorial Board Argues United States ​“Does Not Need the Death Penalty”

Published
Image
In an August 31, 2024, editorial from The New York Times , the newspaper’s editorial board writes that capital punishment is “immoral, unconstitutional and useless as a deterrent to crime,” and asserts that President Joseph Biden should follow through with his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty.  The Times believes “it would be an appropriate and humane finale to his presidency for Mr. Biden to fulfill that pledge and try to eliminate the death penalty for federal crimes.” Since 2000, public support for the death penalty has steadily declined, as have the number of new death sentences and executions. 
Read more

Saudi regime achieves record executions number of opponents during first half of this year

Published
Image
SANA'A September 07. 2024 (Saba) - With the aim of suppressing opponents of the Al Saud regime, the intensity of executions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has escalated sharply in the first half of this year, with an increase of 42 percent over the same period last year. In the latest execution of opponents of the Al Saud regime witnessed by the Kingdom, the death sentence was carried out against Abdul Majeed al-Nimr (59 years old) last Saturday. He is a father of four children from Qatif, a province inhabited by a Shiite majority located in the east of the Kingdom, after he was convicted of joining a "terrorist cell affiliated with Al-Qaeda", according to the Saudi media.
Read more

India | Supreme Court mulls guidelines to address delays in execution of death row convicts

Published
Image
Expressing concern over the agonising indefinite delays in execution of death row convicts, the Supreme Court has indicated that it’s mulling issuing certain guidelines to address the issue. “Possibly, it is time for us to lay down the procedure as to what the public prosecutor has to do when mercy petitions of convicts against the death sentence are rejected. This situation cannot continue. There has to be a procedure as to how the prosecutor and court have to react,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice AS Oka said.
Read more

Indian state passes law seeking death penalty for rape

Published
Image
The law raises punishment for rape from the current sentences of at least 10 years to either life imprisonment or execution An Indian state, shaken by weeks of protests demanding justice after the rape and murder of a doctor, passed a law on Tuesday that could lead to the execution of rapists. Protests erupted in West Bengal after the discovery of a 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in the local capital Kolkata on August 9.
Read more

USA | Former Florida Death-Row Prisoner with Innocence Claim Released Pending Outcome of Federal Appeal

Published
Image
More than thirty years after a Florida judge sentenced him to death following an 8-4 sentencing recommendation by an all-white jury, Crosley Green has been freed. Citing Green’s age and health risks related to continued incarceration during the pandemic, Judge Roy B. Dalton of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on April 7, 2021, ordered Green’s immediate release while a federal appeals court considers prosecutors’ appeal of the district court’s July 2018 decision overturning his conviction. “The Court determines that, because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the length of time to resolve Petitioner’s appeal, … Petitioner would be substantially injured since the Court has already reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial,” Dalton wrote. “Additionally, the public has a strong interest in the release of a prisoner whom the Court has found to be incarcerated in violation of the Constitution. The Court finds that the public interest weighs in favor of
Read more