Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Federal district judges approves Oklahoma's use of animal drug for execution

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this AFP piece, which is headlined "US court okays use of animal drug for human executions," a federal district judge yesterday "approved a drug normally used to euthanize animals for use in capital punishment in Oklahoma, clearing the way for executions held up due to shortage of a key anesthetic." Here's more: Pentobarbital will induce a coma whose "likely outcome is the suppression of respiratory and central nervous system activity to the point that death will result within a short time after injection of the chemical," said Judge Stephen Friot of the US District Court for western Oklahoma. "The likelihood of any other outcome of the intravenous injection of 5,000 milligrams of pentobarbital is effectively nil." A shortage of sodium thiopental -- the first and most crucial of three drugs used in lethal injections -- prompted Oklahoma to seek court approval for pentobarbital as a substitute...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on November 23, 2010 (boomark / email).