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 David Zink, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection after 6
p.m. CDT (1900 ET) at a state prison for the murder of Amanda Morton
of Strafford, Missouri. He would be the fifth person executed in the
state this year.
Police found Morton's body in a cemetery. She had been strangled,
her neck had been broken and her spinal cord sliced with a knife,
according to court records.
Lawyers for Zink have filed a flurry of appeals seeking to halt the
execution, including claims that Missouri officials will be
violating federal law by using compounded pentobarbital in the
execution.
Zink is the named plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by a group of death
row inmates in Missouri against state officials alleging its
lethal-injection protocol is unconstitutional and creates a
substantial risk of severe pain.
The allegations are part of a national debate about the use of
compounded drugs in U.S. executions amid a shortage of traditionally
used pharmaceuticals.
Missouri had adjusted its execution protocol over the last few years
as drug shortages and questions about compounded drugs have arisen.
Previously, Missouri’s lethal-injection protocol involved three
drugs, but in 2012 the state revised it to use a single drug,
propofol, as the lethal agent. The state then revised its protocol
again to use pentobarbital as the sole lethal drug.
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Zink had previously been convicted and imprisoned for abducting and
raping a woman. According to court records, he told authorities in a
videotaped confession that he rear-ended Morton's car on an exit
ramp, then abducted the young woman and killed her because he feared
he would be sent back to prison.
(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City; Editing by Mohammad
Zargham)
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