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Oklahoma Lethal Injection Hearing Today

By Steve Hall

"Okla. Considers Using Vet Drug To Execute Inmate," is the title of Kathy Lohr's report from NPR Morning Edition. Oklahoma is moving forward with plans to execute a prisoner despite a shortage of a drug used in lethal injections that has forced some states to temporarily halt executions. A hearing in federal court Friday will look at the implications of adopting a different drug, one used to euthanize animals, that has never been tested on people. Corrections officials in Oklahoma tried to find a dose of sodium thiopental to carry out the state's next execution. When they couldn't get it, they changed their protocol to allow the use of pentobarbital instead. The question before the federal court is whether substituting the new drug violates an inmate's Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on November 19, 2010 (boomark / email).