HOT SPRINGS — Arkansas would carry out executions using a lethal dose of a single barbiturate under legislation the state attorney general’s office and Department of Correction is drafting.
The method would replace the three-drug protocol that Arkansas had used until legal challenges halted its executions. The state’s last execution was in 2005.
The law being drafted by the attorney general’s office would replace a 2009 law that was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2012.
The court said the 2009 law had given too much discretion to the Correction Department to decide how executions are carried out.
The law listed the chemicals that could be used in executions, but added thatthe Correction Department director may also use “any other chemical or chemicals.”
Brad Phelps, chief deputy attorney general, told the state Board of Corrections on Friday that the law being drafted would specify that a lethal dose of a single barbiturate would be used.
The law would not name the barbiturate, however.
Phelps said he hoped the law would be specific enough to satisfy legal challenges while also giving the Correction Department the flexibility to choose an available drug.
“We’re trying to strike a balance,” Phelps said.
At a meeting in Hot Springs, the board gave its unanimous approval for Correction Department staff to work with the attorney general’s office on drafting the proposed legislation.
Gov. Mike Beebe said at a meeting of the Political Animals Club of Little Rock on Wednesday that he would sign a repeal of the death penalty in Arkansas if the Legislature passed it.
However, the governor is not opposed to capital punishment and would also sign a bill establishing a new lethal injection procedure, said Matt DeCample, the governor’s spokesman.
“We’ve currently got a law on the books that has no method of being carried out,” DeCample said. “If the Legislature produces a bill that fixes that, the governor is going to sign it.”
Seven death-row inmates have exhausted their legal challenges and would be ready to have executiondates set if a lethal injection law were in place, attorney general’s office spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
Since Beebe took office in 2007, he has set execution dates for inmates several times, but each execution has been stayed by judges in response to legal challenges.
Sadler declined to provide more details of the Arkansas legislation being drafted but said he expects it to be presented to the Legislature in a week or two.
A sponsor hasn’t been identified, he said.
Under the three-drug protocol, sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, was administered as an anesthetic, followed by pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
In January 2011, the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental announced that it would no longer produce the drug.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration later seized Arkansas’ supply, along with that of other states, as it investigated how the drug had been imported.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Washington have carried out executions using a single-drug protocol, and other states have announced plans to begin using one.
In most of those states,the single drug being used is pentobarbital, a barbiturate more often used to euthanize animals and treat seizures.
Missouri, however, has announced plans to use propofol, the non-barbiturate anesthetic that caused pop singer Michael Jackson’s death in 2009.
Richard Dieter, director of the center, which opposes capital punishment, said some inmates have challenged single-drug procedures, but those challenges have so far been unsuccessful.
He added, however, that states may face difficulty obtaining the necessary drugs.
Lundbeck, the Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, announced in 2011 that it was imposing restrictions on the drug’s distribution to prevent its use in executions.
The company sold its rights to distribute the drug to Lake Forest, Ill.,-based Akorn Inc. later that year but said Akorn had agreed to use the restrictive distribution system.
Fresenius Kabi USA, a German manufacturer of propofol, announced last year that it would not sell the drug for use in U.S. executions.
Obtaining the drugs is “an ongoing problem,” Dieter said. “I think we’ll see more changes on this before it’s all over.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/19/2013