Oct. 9
TEXAS:
Texas, Pharmacies Clash over Execution Drugs
Authorities in the southern state of Texas are refusing to return lethal
injection drugs purchased from two compounding pharmacies, despite calls from
the firms not to use their substances for executions.
The move comes after foreign drug companies have largely stopped exporting
drugs for lethal injections to the United States, forcing those U.S. states
that still impose death penalties to look to domestic compounding pharmacies to
supply them with the required drugs.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), pharmacy compounding
is a practice in which a licensed pharmacist combines, mixes, or alters a
drug's ingredients to create a medication specifically tailored to the needs of
an individual patient.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice's (DCJ) refusal has to do with the
drug pentobarbital, a substance usually administered as an animal anaesthetic
and as a remedy for epilepsy and seizures in humans. The move comes only a few
days after 1 of the 2 companies involved, Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy (WCP),
had expressly requested that the drugs be returned.
"The drugs were purchased legally and we were upfront with the vendors that
their names would be subject to public disclosures after the purchase," Texas
DCJ's spokesman Jason Clark told IPS. "We are not going to return the drugs."
Clark declined to offer any additional comments, as the issue is currently at
the centre of litigation in Texas.
Calls by IPS to WCP for comment were not returned by deadline. However, in an
Oct. 4 letter, the owner and pharmacist-in-charge of WCP demanded that the DCJ
"immediately return the vials of compounded pentobarbital in exchange for a
refund". According to the company, the sale, which saw WCP providing the State
of Texas with 8 doses of pentobarbital, took place because Texas had
misrepresented the facts.
"Based on the phone calls I had with [the Texas] DCJ, it was my belief that
this information would be kept on the 'down low' and that it was unlikely that
it would be discovered that my pharmacy provided these drugs," WCP's Jasper
Lovoi wrote. "Now that the information has been made public, I find myself in
the middle of a firestorm that I was not advised of and did not bargain for."
The letter is now being used as evidence in a lawsuit that was filed last week
in Texas, challenging the execution of 3 prisoners on death row.
The other company involved in the controversy, Pharmacy Innovation, has also
denied any knowledge of the drugs' purpose. The company said that it was
"completely unaware that the drugs ... were purchased with the intent to use
them for lethal injections," according to a new report by the U.K.-based
Reprieve, an advocacy group.
As soon as it was informed, the company reportedly cancelled the order before
it could be filled.
Asked for comment, Pharmacy Innovation referred IPS to David Ball, of the Ball
Consulting Group, LLC, a health communications firm affiliated with the
International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP), a trade association.
"Although it's true that compounding pharmacies have been approached by some
states to provide them with substances that would assist them in certain
government practices, we should remember that drugs such as pentobarbital cover
only a very small part of what compounding pharmacies do," Ball told IPS.
"In fact, they represent a miniscule and infinitesimal part of the drugs
produced by compounding pharmacies," he said.
Ball declined to comment on the controversy between the Texas DCJ and Woodlands
Compounding Pharmacy.
A new lethal mix
U.S. states turned to compounding pharmacies for drugs for lethal injections
only as recently as 2011. That was necessary after drug companies stopped
selling sodium thiopental (ST), the substance previously used for executions in
the United States.
These drug companies, most based outside the United States, reported facing
legal obstacles because of the unconstitutionality of death penalty in their
home countries.
The Italy-based Hospira, for instance, announced in 2011 that it would stop
producing the drug altogether. The British government, too, banned the export
of ST.
That same year, the Denmark-based Lundbeck announced that it would "deny
distribution of [pentobarbital] to prisons in U.S. states currently active in
carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection."
So far, the domestic compounding industry has offered a viable alternative to
U.S. states still carrying out the death penalty. Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado
and South Dakota, for instance, currently rely on compounding pharmacies for
their supply of pentobarbital.
But the recent developments in Texas suggest that this trend may be
short-lived.
Death penalty opponents are pushing the U.S. FDA to outlaw the practice of
compounding pentobarbital. Thus far, however, the agency has refused to do so,
noting only that the broader practice of compounding is currently under
scrutiny.
"Pharmacy compounding can serve an important public health need if a patient
cannot be treated with an FDA-approved medication," the agency says. For
instance, if a patient needs a medication made without a certain dye because of
an allergy, pharmacy compounding can be an important solution.
Nonetheless, the industry's involvement with the production of pentobarbital
has clearly become a point of significant concern for the compounding sector.
Meanwhile, the State of Texas is proceeding with the Wednesday night execution
of Michael Yowell, a plaintiff in the Texas litigation, for the murder of his
parents in 1998.
(source: IPS News)
GEORGIA:
Guy Heinze Jr. doesn't want jury sequestered for his death penalty trial,
lawyer says
Guy Heinze Jr. wants the jurors in his upcoming death penalty murder trial to
spend their nights at home, his lawyer told Superior Court Judge Stephen
Scarlett Wednesday.
Jerry Word filed a motion for "jury dispersal" Wednesday morning and said he
would object to jury sequestration.
"I've had more bad experiences with sequestered juries doing things than I've
had with non-sequestered jurors," Word told Scarlett.
Word also asserted that publicity in the case has not been overwhelming.
There was massive local and national News coverage in the days and weeks after
Heinze called 911 on the morning of Aug. 29, 2009, and reported that his whole
family had been beaten to death. He was subsequently charged with murder in the
brutal deaths of his father, Guy Heinze Sr., and 7 others in a mobile home. One
victim, a young child, survived after a long stay in the hospital and a
rehabilitation center.
When juries are allowed to go home at night, they are more relaxed and prone to
spend the necessary time on deliberations, Word said.
Juries that have been sequestered in hotels for 2 to 3 weeks feel pressured to
deliver a verdict quickly, he said.
Not only that, they form alliances among themselves that reduces the
independence, he said.
"He's anxious to get his trial done," Word said of Heinze. "We don't want this
jury to feel in any way they need to hurry through this," Word said.
Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson asserted that sequestration is
normal and accepted in death penalty cases to prevent jurors being exposed to
publicity during the trial.
With the jurors going home at night, the likelihood of them seeing or hearing
news coverage about the case increases, Johnson said.
"What if you get 6 or 7 exposed?" Johnson asked. "What do you do then? Stop the
trial?"
Of the 297 jurors who were questioned during jury qualification over the past 3
weeks, 34 had opinions based on publicity, Johnson said.
"We're talking 4 years ago, and they still remember it," Johnson said.
Johnson said he is concerned that mid-trial, someone would come up with a
problem.
Scarlett promised an order on the sequestration by the end of the day.
Also, the jury pool shrank from 76 to 73 as Scarlett dismissed three jurors;
one because he starts a new job Monday in Nashville, Tenn., a single mother who
said her cousin, who would baby sit for her at her home during the trial, knows
Heinze, and a woman whose blood pressure was elevated during the jury
questioning process.
Scarlett heard from 5 others with conflicts that have arisen since they were
qualified. He told them they would be told by Friday afternoon whether they
should report at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday for the selection of the jury for the trial.
(source: Florida Times-Union)
ALABAMA:
Jury recommends death for Floyd; Floyd may be sentenced Wednesday
An Escambia County jury recommended Wednesday, by a 11-1 vote, for convicted
murder Cedric Floyd to receive the death penalty.
Circuit Judge Bert Rice will make the final decision on Floyd's sentencing at a
hearing, tentatively scheduled for sometime in January 2014.
Floyd was convicted Monday of fatally shooting his girlfriend, Tina Jones, at
her home on Jan. 2, 2011.
(source: Atmore Advance)
USA:
How the Supreme Court 'evolved' on capital punishment
Wilkerson v. Utah (1878): No drawing and quartering, disemboweling, or burning
at the stake, for all those are "cruel and unusual punishments" prohibited by
the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
Furman v. Georgia (1972): The Supreme Court struck down the imposition of
capital punishment in several specific instances, but had no majority rationale
for doing so. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall called the death
penalty "cruel and unusual," since it wasn't used very often. (Brennan defined
"cruel and unusual" as "degrading to human dignity ... obviously inflicted in
wholly arbitrary fashion ... clearly and totally rejected throughout society
... patently unnecessary.") Justice William O. Douglas cited racial
discrimination. Justices Byron White and Potter Stewart expressed concern about
inconsistent application of the law.
Gregg v. Georgia (1976): Many observers thought Furman meant the end of capital
punishment in the United States - but 7 months later the court created in Roe
v. Wade a right of mothers to choose a death penalty for their unborn children.
State legislatures that tolerated Roe did not tolerate Furman: 37 states
enacted new death penalty statutes that dealt with the inconsistencies that
bothered White and Stewart. In Gregg, the court upheld separating trials for
capital crimes into 2 parts, one to decide guilt and the 2nd for sentencing,
with juries in the sentencing hearing deciding whether mitigating factors made
appropriate a sentence of life in prison rather than execution.
Coker v. Georgia (1977): The court barred use of capital punishment in rape
cases (and implied that it could not be the penalty for any state crime other
than murder). The federal government remained free to use it as punishment for
espionage or treason.
Atkins v. Virginia (2002) and Roper v. Simmons (2005): No capital punishment of
the mentally retarded and of persons under 18 at the time of the crime.
(source: Marvin Olasky, World Magazine)
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