British drug used in latest US execution

Oct 28, 2010, 0:19 GMT

Washington - A shortage of a US-produced drug essential to executions failed to delay the execution of an Arizona convict, who had challenged the source of the ingredient that would help kill him.

Instead, Jeffrey Landrigan was put to death Tuesday evening in the Florence prison in Arizona after he was rendered unconscious by sodiumthiopental, which came from a British supplier, The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.

Sodiumthiopental is a barbiturate that sedates the condemned prisoner to the point of unconsciousness, before lethal drugs are introduced into the body.

Only one US company, Illinois-based Hospira, produces sodiumthiopental, and has said it is not happy about the use of its product in executions. Hospira says it lacks a key ingredient for the drug but hopes to resume production by mid January.

The growing shortage has played havoc with execution schedules around the country - most recently in September, when the California Supreme Court forbade the state's attempt to rush the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown before its limited supply of the drug was about to reach its expiration date.

Other US states, including Kentucky and Oklahoma, have already had to delay executions because of the shortage.

Landrigan's lawyers had challenged his execution on various grounds, including demands to know the source of the sodiumthiopenthal. Arizona refused to reveal the source, and the execution was put on hold through a succession appeals to a federal circuit court.

But when the case reached the US Supreme Court, the judges voted 5-4 late Tuesday to let the execution go ahead.

'There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe,' the court ruled.

The court said there was also no evidence that the use of the drug was 'sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,' an argument made by Landrigan's lawyers.

Landrigan had been on Arizona's death row for 20 years for the 1989 murder of Chester Dean Dyer in Phoenix.

Although the state refused to officially reveal the source of the drug in the court proceedings, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard revealed to an Arizona Republic reporter late Monday that the drug had come from Britain.