Lethal Injection

CONCORD, N.H. - As the US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on whether lethal injection is too painful a way to execute inmates, lawyers in a potential death penalty case in New Hampshire are preparing their own challenge. Lawyers representing Michael Addison, who is accused of killing a police officer, have already filed numerous challenges to the state death penalty law. Now they are updating arguments they were prepared to make in another case nearly a decade ago that administering the lethal injection itself is "cruel and unusual" punishment.

America's executions have changed dramatically over the years, morphing from daylong events in the town square to somber and tightly controlled affairs held deep inside prisons. Driving the change was the quest for a less gruesome — even less painful — method of execution. Along the way, the public saw less of what happens when the state puts an inmate to death. Today, nearly all of the 34 states that use lethal injection restrict access to half of every execution, shielding from view the portion when the condemned enters the death chamber and the IV lines are inserted.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The sole US manufacturer of a key lethal-injection drug said yesterday that it is ending production due to opposition to the death penalty overseas — potentially delaying executions in the United States. Over the past several months, a shortage of sodium thiopental has forced some states to put executions on hold. And the problem is likely to get worse with the announcement from Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill. Hospira is the only sodium thiopental-maker approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Associated Press and 16 other organizations sued the state of Idaho on Tuesday to force officials to let witnesses watch executions from start to finish, arguing that the media has a First Amendment right to view all steps of a lethal injection execution. The group asked a U.S. District Court judge to require the state to increase witness access to its executions, starting with the upcoming execution of Richard A. Leavitt, a convicted killer scheduled to be put to death on June 12. The AP was joined in the lawsuit by the Idaho Press Club, Idahoans for Openness in Government,...

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A state judge yesterday upheld the use of lethal injection in Kentucky, saying it is not cruel and unusual punishment. Franklin Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden said the method of execution should be changed to rule out one painful step. Officials for the state say they plan to challenge that part of the ruling on appeal. "The execution protocol adopted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, with one exception, complies with the constitutional requirements against cruel and unusual punishment," Crittenden wrote.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court's decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures has slowed the annual number of executions to its lowest level in a decade amid renewed concerns about whether the method is cruel. The Georgia Supreme Court yesterday stopped the execution of Jack Alderman, which had been scheduled for today. The state justices cited the high court's review. The Supreme Court blocked Virginia's plans to execute Christopher Scott Emmett on Wednesday, hours before he was to die by lethal injection.

A Swiss pharmaceutical company has issued a voluntary recall of a lethal injection drug held by Nebraska, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it won't enforce the decision. Naari AG asked Nebraska officials to quarantine its supply of sodium thiopental and return it to the company or the FDA. The company said in a recall letter that the product was "illegally diverted from the company's supply chain. " Nebraska officials say they obtained the supply in a legitimate manner and will not return it. Sodium thiopental has been in short supply...

In the state's latest effort to restart long-stalled executions in California, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday ordered prison officials to explore using a single drug for lethal injections instead of three. Brown's order was disclosed in a two-page appeal of a Marin County judge's decision to toss out California's newly developed lethal injection regulations. The new procedures called for prisoners to be put to death through the use of sodium thiopental, which may no longer be available in the United States, and two other drugs.

WASHINGTON -- Death row inmates in more than a dozen states are fighting lethal injection, and with surprising success. What once appeared to be a long-shot legal argument now seems to be gaining ground. Judges from California to Louisiana, and even at the nation's highest court, are entangled in disputes between state prison officials and inmates who contend that their executions may be painful. The eventual outcome of the cases could be sweeping because every state that has capital punishment, except for Nebraska, has lethal injection.

WASHINGTON - A quarter-century has elapsed since the United States experienced as long a pause in executions as the one the Supreme Court has occasioned with its current examination of lethal injections. No one has been put to death since Sept. 25 and the earliest that executions will probably resume is in the summer. Forty-two people were executed in 2007, the lowest total in 13 years. Last month, New Jersey became the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty. But when the justices return from their holiday break and hear...

A Swiss pharmaceutical company has issued a voluntary recall of a lethal injection drug held by Nebraska, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it won't enforce the decision. Naari AG asked Nebraska officials to quarantine its supply of sodium thiopental and return it to the company or the FDA. The company said in a recall letter that the product was "illegally diverted from the company's supply chain. " Nebraska officials say they obtained the supply in a legitimate manner and will not return it. Sodium thiopental has been in short supply since 2010, when the only...

Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered prison officials to explore using a single drug for lethal injections instead of three, in the state's latest attempt to restart long-stalled executions in California. The governor's order was disclosed in an appeal of a Marin County judge's decision to toss out California's newly developed lethal injection regulations. The new procedures called for prisoners to be put to death through the use of sodium thiopental, which may no longer be available in the United States, and two other drugs.

A Texas man condemned for a robbery in which three people were shot, one fatally, apologized to a woman who survived the 2002 attack and family members of the slain man before receiving a lethal injection Thursday. Beunka Adams said he was a stupid kid in a man's body at the time of the crime, which started at a convenience store southeast of Dallas and ended in a remote area several miles away. "Everything that happened that night was wrong," Adams, 29, said, as he stared at the death chamber ceiling, never looking at the people who gathered to watch...

In the state's latest effort to restart long-stalled executions in California, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday ordered prison officials to explore using a single drug for lethal injections instead of three. Brown's order was disclosed in a two-page appeal of a Marin County judge's decision to toss out California's newly developed lethal injection regulations. The new procedures called for prisoners to be put to death through the use of sodium thiopental, which may no longer be available in the United States, and two other drugs.

The attorney for an Arizona death-row inmate executed Wednesday said he was "very disturbed" after seeing his client shake for several seconds upon receiving his lethal injection, and he wants to find out if the man felt any unnecessary pain. Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, was executed at the state prison in Florence for killing a Tucson college student after robbing him of $200 in July 1992. Kemp lay strapped to a table in the death chamber as he delivered his final words: "I regret nothing.

An Arkansas inmate sentenced to death for killing a University of Arkansas student is seeking a new trial. A judge in Fayetteville is considering the request from Zachariah Marcyniuk, who was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the killing of his ex-girlfriend, Katie Wood. The Northwest Arkansas Times reports ( http://is.gd/Qa7tBC) that the hearing began Wednesday and continues Thursday. Marcyniuk claims his trial attorney did not ask prospective jurors whether they would automatically vote to impose the death penalty upon a conviction.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's refusal yesterday to consider a second lethal injection case suggests that the justices are not ready to decide whether the drugs amount to cruel and unusual punishment, legal specialists said. The denial was issued without comment, leaving court watchers to speculate about justices' reasons for rejecting an appeal by a Tennessee death-row inmate who says lethal injection is unconstitutional. "The Supreme Court is plainly not ready to step into the lethal injection controversy yet," said Eric M. Freedman, a Hofstra University law professor.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court took a stark look yesterday at how convicted killers are put to death, hearing an appeal from a man who contends that his damaged veins make it likely that his lethal injection could be botched. Injection is available to inmates in 37 states and is generally considered more humane than hanging, electrocution, and the gas chamber. But it is not without problems, justices were told by the lawyer for Alabama death row inmate David Larry Nelson. Last fall, Nelson was less than three hours from execution when the Supreme Court gave...

FLORENCE, Ariz. - Arizona executed an inmate yesterday for killing and dismembering his adoptive mother while he was out of prison on furlough for another crime, despite a spate of last-minute appeals over his mental disabilities and over how the state has violated its own execution protocol. Just before he was put to death, Robert Henry Moormann used his last words to apologize to his family and to the family of an 8-year-old girl he kidnapped and molested in 1972. "I hope this brings closure and they can start healing now," he said.

Animal advocates are calling for a Utah animal shelter to shut down its gas chamber after a cat survived being gassed twice. The Salt Lake Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/wycakV ) advocates favor euthanasia by lethal injection at the West Valley-Taylorsville Animal Shelter after the stray cat named Andrea survived two rounds in its gas chamber in October. Advocates say gas chambers can take up to 30 minutes to end an animal's life, while lethal injection causes unconsciousness within seconds and death within minutes.