Lawyers say Arkansas to use untried execution drug

Associated Press ^ | Apr 16, 2013 10:00 PM EDT | Jeanie Nuss

[Olog-hai]

Arkansas plans to put prisoners to death with a drug that apparently hasn’t been used in a U.S. execution, and lawyers for condemned inmates warn that it could take longer for someone to die from it than from other lethal injection drugs.

Arkansas Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the state plans to use phenobarbital, along with lorazepam, in lethal injections. None are currently scheduled, but Arkansas recently passed a law that will allow the state to resume executions. …

In a letter obtained by the AP, federal public defender Jennifer Horan told Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe that phenobarbital takes effect more slowly than other drugs used to execute prisoners and that it carries a “substantial risk of a lingering and inhumane death.” …

[Fire_on_High]

I seem to recall reading various books by older vets that phenobarbital was the preferred humane euthanasia drug for animals. Too damn kind for prisoners!

[Colofornian]

(Yes, some drugs are "untried"...until they are tried...so...have a death-row inmate "volunteer" to be THE guinea pig...and then we can just "move along" from that "untried" concern..right?)

[Gene Eric]

>> Lawyers say Arkansas to use untried execution drug

LOL - untested...

Headline award.

[Vendome]

3 ounces of lead to the back of the head from a tube about 8 gauge has proven 100% successful.

[Berlin_Freeper]

They don’t want to die... but they want to die quick.

Some people are never satisfied.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Execution should be by the same manner and method the convicted felon used on his or her victims.

[Slings and Arrows]

Rope is a proven technology.

[Bikkuri]

[ElkGroveDan]

...it could take longer for someone to die from it than from other lethal injection drugs.

Oh please. Fry me a liver. How long did it take their victims to die? Tie them up them out in the desert on an anthill for all I care.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

From what I've heard this combination is thought to be better. It may take longer, but they will be unconscious. It's two old drugs commonly used by humans in normal doses, and I believe one is what's used to euthanize animals, as someone already stated. I'm pretty sure they know exactly how it's going work. The combo they usually use works fast, but it has caused what seem to be painful deaths. Both are probably nothing compared to the fear and pain they inflicted while committing the murder/s that put them there.

[SeminoleCounty]

Well ....gotta try the drugs sometime. Its not like “can be fatal in large doses” is a big issue here

[DH]

Lawyers say Arkansas to use untried execution drug

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WoW! That could be dangerous and may kill the animal quicker and with less pain that the poor soul he/she killed.

We certainly can’t be putting dangerous drugs into death row criminals can we? It just might KILL THEM!

[DH]

and I believe one is what’s used to euthanize animals, as someone already stated.

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Well.............they are animals.

[tbpiper]

What? Are they afraid they’re goning to get somebody killed?

[New Jersey Realist]

I guess they don’t want to harm the convict, just kill him. /s/

[wetgundog]

If it kills them, then it works.

[clee1]

200mg of morphine, plus 50mg of of any benzodiazepine (like valium, ativan, xanax) will kill most any adult human.

They will have an amazing high, followed by unconsciousness, followed rapidly by respiratory arrest.

Add say, 20mg of potassium, 5 minutes after the first cocktail and you’ll get a nearly instant cardiac arrest that the prisoner will never feel.

[John O]

They should use the same method of execution that they used on Terri Schiavo.

[BuffaloJack]

Untied? Why does this matter?
Just hook the perp up to a I.V. gasoline drip and give him a smoke.