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Another litigation front, now involvign the FDA, in the battles over lethal injection drugs

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this USA Today piece, yesterday lawyers who represent "six death row prisoners sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ... in an attempt to block the importation of a key drug used by states to perform executions by lethal injection." Here is more: The lawsuit, filed on behalf of prisoners in Arizona, California and Tennessee, alleges that the FDA allowed states to import unapproved supplies of sodium thiopental in violation of federal regulatory laws.... "Because unapproved sodium thiopental has not been shown to work as intended, using it in executions creates unacceptable risks that prisoners will not be properly anesthetized before the other drugs used in lethal injection protocols stop the prisoners' breathing and induce cardiac arrest," attorney Bradford Berenson said...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 03, 2011 (boomark / email).