Untested Veterinary Drug Set To Be Used In Lethal Injection This Week
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dotty Griffith, Public Education Director, ACLU Foundation of Texas
(512) 478-7300 x 106 or 923-1909; [email protected]
AUSTIN - The State of Texas requires more regulation of procedures for euthanasia of animals than for lethal injections of humans subject to the death penalty, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University Law School.
The report, “Regulating Death in the Lone Star State: Texas Law Protects Lizards From Needless Suffering, But Not Human Beings,” highlights how Texas rules regarding lethal injections contrast sharply with the state’s detailed regulations to ensure that animals suffer minimal pain when they are euthanized.
Due to a national shortage of sodium thiopental, part of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections across the country, Texas and several other states have scrambled to secure execution drugs leading to controversial changes in the way death row prisoners are put to death. The report reveals that there is no evidence Texas has ever engaged in a meaningful assessment of whether pentobarbital can or should be used in combination with the other two drugs administered in lethal injections, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
The execution of Cleve Foster, set for Tuesday, April 5, would be the first substituting the veterinary drug pentobarbital for sodium thiopental.
According to the report, the state's planned use of pentobarbital in a new three-drug protocol for its lethal injection process is particularly troubling given the concerns of prominent anesthesiologists that it could lead to an excruciatingly painful death.
“The failure of this drug in its intended use would cause everyone’s worst surgical nightmare: total paralysis and excruciating pain,” said Lisa Graybill, Legal Director of the ACLU of Texas. "Expert assessment and governmental transparency should be minimum requirements before this new drug protocol is used.”
Animal euthanasia laws in Texas mandate strict certification requirements for euthanasia technicians. Texas legislators, however, have failed to enact any legislation to ensure that the persons responsible for causing death by lethal injection are properly trained and that the drugs they administer are effective and humane.
“We are calling on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Governor Rick Perry and the courts to stay pending executions until the legislature enacts measures that provide at least the same protections to human beings condemned to die as are provided to sick or unwanted animals," said John Holdridge, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “The judiciary should also require the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to allow for public scrutiny and expert assessment of its new lethal injection protocol.
