Medical professionals say the state’s new lethal injection protocol “doesn’t make much sense.” Nearly a year ago, Nevada death row inmate Scott Dozier asked to be executed, telling a state court judge he would forego his appeals. A doctor deemed Dozier, who was convicted of the 2002 shooting and dismemberment death of 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller, competent to make the decision. But a problem arose: The state had no drugs to carry out a lethal injection. Keeping with a recent trend of pharmaceutical industry opposition to the use of their products in executions, the drug manufacturer Pfizer ordered its distributors not to sell midazolam and hydromorphone to prisons. Nevada solicited bids for those drugs from suppliers and received zero offers. Earlier this month, Nevada officials announced a solution in the form of a new drug combination, which numerous experts say has never been used in a U.S. execution. At Dozier’s execution on November 14 — the state’s first...
Striving for a World without Capital Punishment