Thread: Texas to Use Animal Drug for Executions

MARCH 16, 2011, 12:16 P.M. ET.

Texas to Use Animal Drug for Executions

By NATHAN KOPPEL

Texas, the nation's leading death-penalty state, will now use a drug generally used for animal euthanasia, to carry out executions.

The move to switch to pentobarbital, a sedative, comes amid a nationwide shortage of thiopental sodium, a more common execution drug used in the U.S. for almost three decades.

Texas follows the lead of two other states, Oklahoma and Ohio, which have also switched to pentobarbital.

Pentobarbital, which has long been used by veterinarians to put animals to sleep, has limited uses in medical procedures, including the treatment of certain types of epilepsy. The drug has also been used to carry out assisted suicides.

Lawyers who represent death-row inmates have argued in court that pentobarbital is too unproven and dangerous for use in human executions, but courts have so far rejected those challenges.

Oklahoma has used pentobarbital in two executions, while Ohio used the drug earlier this month to execute convicted murder Johnnie Baston.

Texas will follow the same procedure as Oklahoma, injecting inmates with pentobarbital to sedate them and then following that with the injection of two other drugs to complete the procedure.

Texas currently has five executions scheduled from April through July. Last year, it executed 17 people, the most of any state, and it has carried out more than 450 executions over the past 25 years.

"Oklahoma has successfully used the drug in its execution process and our protocol would be the same as Oklahoma," said Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The move by Texas, lawyers said, could persuade other states to use pentobarbital, since it has proven increasingly challenging to try to acquire thiopental from overseas suppliers.

Write to Nathan Koppel at nathan.koppel@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... sNewsThird

If it's good enough for our pets it's good enough for our criminals.

Just charter a small boat and tie a free' rock around the criminals feet. Execution AND burial at sea ftw...

I agree most of the convicts on death row are animals anyway. They didnt consider what they killed with. SHOOT a 22 shell would be cheaper than a drug.DEADisDEAD no matter how its carried out. If they put to death the ones on death row it would save tax payers money.But no they have more rights than the people that are not in prison.