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So Much for the Rule of Law

By Michael Blankenship

Arizona executed a man last night after the US supreme court lifted a stay granted when the state refused to reveal how it obtained one of the drugs used in the death chamber from a British manufacturer. The state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, used a little known law preventing the identification of executioners ? and others with "ancillary" functions ? to defy a court order requiring the state to reveal the exact source of an anesthetic, sodium thiopental, used in the execution. Read more... The effectiveness of sodium thiopental was one of the main issues in Baze v. Rees. And states are not supposed to use drugs not approved by the FDA. Given that states are supposed to follow the law and that the effectiveness of one of the three drugs used to kill people is in question, one might think that the state would have delayed the execution in order to follow the rule of law and to ensure that a botched execution was avoided...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on October 27, 2010 (boomark / email).