Legal News

Battles Over Lethal Injection Drugs Heat Up in Georgia, Texas

By Nathan Koppel

States have struggled for about a year now over the seemingly simple task of securing drugs to carry out lethal injections.

In the latest and perhaps strangest twist in this saga, the DEA on Tuesday seized Georgia’s entire supply of thiopental because of concerns about how the state imported the drug from overseas. Like other states, Georgia last year was forced to import thiopental from England, due to the U.S. shortage of the drug.

“Questions came to light with how the substance was imported” by Georgia, DEA agent Chuvalo Truesdell told the WSJ, declining to elaborate. He said the DEA will retain control of Georgia’s thiopental while it conducts an investigation, which could last up to six months.

The DEA’s actions trace to a February letter to Attorney General Eric Holder alleging that Georgia violated federal law by failing to register as an importer of thiopental. The letter was sent by Skadden partner John Bentivoglio, who represents Georgia death row inmate Andrew Grant DeYoung.

The letter prompted Georgia to alert the DEA, which led to the seizure, WSJ reports.

Bentivoglio told the New York Times that the seizure demonstrates that the drug agency took his assertions seriously. "It's clear that the potential unlawful import of this drug was more than a mere paperwork violation," he said.

In still other news, Texas yesterday announced that it would start using pentobarbital instead of thiopental to carry out executions, WSJ reports.

The shift by Texas, the most active death penalty state, will likely draw more attention to Lundbeck, the Danish company that makes pentobarbital. Already, Lundbeck has been petitioned by death penalty opponents to block the distribution of the drug to states’ death chambers.

Northwestern University law professor Joseph Margulies told the WSJ that he met earlier this month with Lundbeck officials to try to persuade them to establish a pentobarbital blockade. "Lundbeck has a problem on its hands made more acute by the announcement by Texas" that it will use pentobarbital in executions, he said.

Lundbeck said in a statement that it “does not condone use of [pentobarbital] or any product for capital punishment.”

Lundbeck spokesman Anders Schroll said the company is investigating what it can do to prevent distribution of the drug to prisons, but he said the company doubts any such blockade would be completely effective. "I don't think that is very realistic but we will give it a chance," he said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 17, 2011 (boomark / email).