Arkansas will have a more difficult time obtaining additional lethal injection drugs after an unprecedented court challenge by a drug distributor and possible complications during at least one of the four executions the state carried out this month, experts said. The state launched an ambitious plan to execute eight death row inmates over 11 days to beat the expiration date on one of the three drugs needed under the state's lethal injection protocol, but four of the executions were halted by courts. All of the major manufacturers of injectable midazolam have said they do not want their drugs used in executions and most of them have created control systems, including contracts with third-party drug distributors prohibiting the sale of their drugs for use in lethal injections. Some of those companies have even asked wholesalers who sell drug components to compounding pharmacies to sign contracts that they will not sell the manufacturers' ingredients to compounders that plan to make lethal injection drugs. American drugmakers that refused to make sodium thiopental sparked drug shortages at execution chambers nationwide in 2011, forcing many states to look for alternatives. An Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman confirmed the state destroyed the unused backup doses prepared for the recent executions, but it was not clear if the prison readied drugs for any of the four inmates whose scheduled executions were blocked by courts. [...] Correction Department Director Wendy Kelley has testified that she drove to an undisclosed location to obtain the state's newest batch of potassium chloride from a person who chose to donate the drug rather than create a record of a sale.
Arkansas Will Face Challenges Replenishing Execution Supply
By CLAUDIA LAUER, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Fri, 04/28/2017 - 11:35pm
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