Sued by death row inmates, Arizona admits lack of execution drug
The US state of Arizona has declared that it has run out of lethal drugs to conduct executions after a lawsuit by death row inmates who argued the state was using drugs that violate a ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Yielding a legal battle to defense attorneys of the prisoners, Arizona’s Department of Corrections stated on Friday that its supply of controversial sedative, midazolam, which has been linked to botched lethal injections, ran out on May 31.
State lawyers further proposed eliminating the drug from lethal injection, saying the state has been unable to find replacements.
In a document filed late Friday, the department asked a judge at Phoenix’s US District Court to declare moot the legal case brought against the state’s use of the drug.
Lacking the sedative drug or any others approved in Arizona’s official execution protocol, there can be no executions in the southwestern US state in the foreseeable future.
Seven death row inmates had filed the lawsuit against the state. Their lawyers argued the use of midazolam and two other drugs breaches the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.
The use of the death penalty was halted in Arizona after the botched execution of convicted murderer Joseph Wood in July 2014.
Wood was administered a total of 15 doses of midazolam and a narcotic, hydromorphone, and took nearly two hours to die.
The bungled execution stirred a major controversy, leading even some advocates of capital punishment to censure it, saying it amounted to torture.
Arizona has more than 100 prisoners on death row at the state prison in Florence.
Meanwhile, other US states have experienced difficulty in obtaining drugs for use in executions partly due to a boycott imposed by European pharmaceutical companies in offering drugs for such objectives.
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