US seizes key execution drug in Georgia!

ATLANTA — The Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed Tuesday that the agency seized the state of Georgia's supply of a key lethal injection drug because of questions about how the stockpile was imported to the U.S. 

DEA spokesman Chuvalo Truesdell said he didn't know if other states' supplies of sodium thiopental were being collected. The seizure comes less than two months after a convicted killer in Georgia was executed, despite raising questions about where the state had obtained the drug and whether or not it had expired.

Truesdell wouldn't elaborate on exactly what worried the DEA.

"We had questions about how the drug was imported to the U.S.," he said. "There were concerns."
Georgia's stockpile of the drug has been a target of death row inmates and capital punishment critics since corrections officials released documents this year that showed the state obtained the drug from Link Pharmaceuticals, a firm purchased five years ago by Archimedes Pharma Limited. Both are British firms.

The drug was used in January to execute Emmanuel Hammond, 45-year-old man convicted for the 1988 shotgun slaying of an Atlanta preschool teacher. His attorneys sought a delay in the execution to gather more information on how the state obtained the drug, claiming in court documents it came from a "fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England." They said the drug could have been counterfeit.

The U.S. Supreme Court, as well as lower courts, rejected Hammond's argument.

Joan Heath, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, said state officials were not concerned with the quality of the drug.

"We contacted the DEA and asked them for a regulatory review, and that's what we're doing," she said. "We're going to make sure we're in regulatory compliance with the DEA over how we handle controlled substances."

Sodium thiopental, a sedative that is part of a three drug cocktail used in executions, has been in short supply since the sole U.S. manufacturer decided to stop producing it.

The shortage has delayed executions in several states, and an Associated Press review found that at least five states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia and Tennessee — had to turn to England for their supply of the drug. Nebraska, meanwhile, secured a stockpile from an Indian firm.

This complete article can be found at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42099826/ns/us_news 

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Wrongful Conviction of Youth - Devontae Sanford

False confessions by dysfunctional people are a fact of life. Sanford's confession is about as probative as those given under torture during the Spanish Inquisition, so what gave it enough legs to land Sanford in prison on a guilty plea? The sorry answer is that it made things easy for the criminal justice system.

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State by State Database | Death Penalty Information Center

Check out CALI's death penalty statistics:
State by State Database | Death Penalty Information Center

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Hip Hop & Politics: Privatization of Prisons

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Lawsuit Challenges FDA's Inaction on Lethal Injection Drugs in Many States

On February 2, the national law firm of Sidley Austin LLP filed a suit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in federal court on behalf of six death row inmates from Arizona, California, and Tennessee.  The suit seeks to compel the FDA to bar the importation or use of unapproved sodium thiopental, a drug used by most states in lethal injections, but no longer available in the U.S. 
The plaintiff's brief states that, following a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental in 2010, the FDA illegally allowed prison officials to obtain the lethal injection drug from sources outside of the U.S., while refusing to investigate the safety and purity of the imported drugs. 

The inmates are represented by Bradford A. Berenson, a former associate counsel to President George W. Bush and a partner at Sidley.  In a statement released by the law firm, Berenson said, "The law requires FDA to ensure that only safe, effective drugs are brought into the United States. When the agency allowed states to import unapproved sodium thiopental, it abdicated its responsibilities and violated federal law."  Berenson, a supporter of the death penalty, also said that the lawsuit is "not about halting executions but rather about ensuring that illegal drugs are not used in carrying out otherwise lawful sentences."  Read full press release from Sidley Austin LLP and read Complaint filed against FDA.

The suit alleges that inmates from the named states face execution with drugs that have been illegally imported and may cause severe harm.  The suit states that the imported sodium thiopental is "unapproved, misbranded, [and] adulterated," all in violation of federal law. 

(N. Koppel, "FDA Dragged Into Execution-Drug Controversy," The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2011).  See Lethal Injection.

This information was taken from a blog post from a friend on http://prisonlinks.lefora.com. The post can be found at: http://bit.ly/fDxIHR 

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Death Penalty Documentary: Execution Tour of NC Death Row

The following can be found at: http://prisonrideshare.ning.com/

A death penalty documentary short film (10 minutes) by Scott Langley. The warden of North Carolina's Central Prison (Marvin Polk) narrates the preparation and final hours before a state execution in Raleigh, where the execution facilities are located.

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