Doctor
tells U.S. court drug not suitable for Arkansas
executions
Send a link to a friend
[April 13, 2017]
By Steve Barnes
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - A surgeon
told a federal court in Arkansas on Wednesday that a sedative the state
plans to use in its lethal injection mix is not suitable for surgery and
should be prohibited when Arkansas holds an unprecedented series of
executions later this month.
|
Arkansas plans to kill eight prisoners in dual executions over 11
days from April 17, although a federal judge has halted one
execution. Death penalty opponents have said the rushed schedule is
reckless and increases the chance of errors.
The European Union on Wednesday called on Arkansas to commute the
death sentences.
The convicted murderers scheduled to die have asked U.S. District
Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock to halt their executions, saying
the state's rush to the death chamber was unconstitutional. Baker
set a Thursday deadline for evidence.
Lawyers for Arkansas, which has not had an execution in 12 years,
have told the court that the drug in question, midazolam, has been
used in executions in other states and its lethal injection
protocols pass constitutional muster.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Apr/13/images/ads/current/Applegate_exc_sda_daily_030415.png)
Jonathan Groner, a professor at Ohio State University's medical
school and a specialist in pediatrics and trauma, testified that he
has never used midazolam as the primary anesthetic in thousands of
operations he has performed.
"It would be malpractice for me to do an appendectomy using
midazolam as an anesthetic," he said. He was a witness for the
inmates and on cross examination said he was a death penalty
opponent.
When the number of executions was rising in the late 1990s, several
states held double and even triple executions on the same day,
including Arkansas.
At that time, a powerful sedative was part of the mix but since
then, major pharmaceutical companies have banned sales to states for
executions. This caused a scramble for new mixes, including
combinations with midazolam, which has been used in flawed
executions in states including Oklahoma and Arizona where witnesses
said inmates writhed in pain on death chamber gurneys.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jan/26/images/ads/current/Symphony_lda_2017.png)
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, set the schedule,
saying the state's midazolam supply expires at the end of April and
it was in the interest of justice to hold as many executions as
possible while Arkansas has the difficult-to-obtain drug.
Separately, Ohio has asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit to re-consider a decision last week from a three-judge
panel from that court blocking the state's lethal injection process,
the attorney general's office said.
(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and Kim
Palkmer in Cleveland; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Matthew
Lewis, Toni Reinhold)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Apr/13/images/ads/current/agland_lda_farm_2015.png)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Aug/26/images/ads/current/directory_buttons.png) |