Virginia To Switch Execution Drugs Due To Shortage

The Associated Press
By Dena Potter

RICHMOND

Virginia will join other states that are switching the sedative used in lethal injections because of a nationwide shortage of the drug, officials said Monday.

The Virginia Department of Corrections will substitute pentobarbital for sodium thiopental, whose sole U.S. manufacturer announced in January it would no longer make the drug.

The announcement sent the nation's 34 death penalty states scrambling to find a new supplier. Some canceled executions, while others obtained the drug from England, but then had it confiscated by federal agents amid questions they circumvented the law to obtain it because that country has banned the drug's export for executions.

It is not clear whether Virginia purchased sodium thiopental from overseas, and if so whether the Drug Enforcement Administration also seized its supply.

Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor referred all questions to the Attorney General's Office, which refused to answer questions about whether Virginia had obtained sodium thiopental from overseas.

Virginia will continue to use a three-drug cocktail, only substituting the sedative drugs, said Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. The first drug sedates the inmate, while a second stops his breathing and the third stops the heart.

"The Virginia protocol for lethal injection has been litigated and has been found to be constitutionally acceptable by every court in Virginia that has looked at it ... and we are confident that the change to allow the drug pentobarbital to be substituted for sodium thiopental in the protocol will be found to be constitutionally acceptable, as well," Gottstein said.

Pentobarbital has survived legal challenges in other states and has been used for recent executions in Oklahoma, Ohio and South Carolina.

Virginia is home to the nation's second-busiest death chamber, behind Texas. There currently are no scheduled executions.

Georgia Executes Convicted Triple Murderer

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia executed a triple murderer by lethal injection on Monday despite pleas from his lawyers for a delay on the grounds of mental incompetence after he tried to commit suicide last week.

Brandon Rhode, 31, was convicted in 2000 of killing a father and his two young children during a burglary in Georgia's Jones County, state authorities said.

He was declared dead at 10:16 p.m. after an execution witnessed by family members of the condemned, a member of the clergy and a paralegal, said state prison authorities.

He made no special request for a last meal and was given a chili hot dog, fruit cocktail, round potatoes, coleslaw, carrots and a slice of cake, the authorities said.

The execution at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison near Jackson, central Georgia, was delayed from 7 p.m. while the Supreme Court considered a final request for a stay, said Sara Totonchi, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Earlier, the state supreme court rejected an appeal for a stay. That court had granted a stay last week after Rhode was discovered in his cell having slashed his throat in a suicide attempt and was hospitalized.

"This is a particularly grizzly case. They rushed him to the hospital to revive him only to reschedule his execution," said Laura Moye, spokeswoman for Amnesty International, USA.

"He is not an innocent man but he is a human being and it is outrageous for the state of Georgia to execute him without determining his competency," Moye said in an interview.

Rhodes is the 25th inmate executed by lethal injection in the state. The drug sodium thiopental was used in the execution as part of the lethal cocktail.
www.latimes.com

Darick Walker Executed In Virginia

May 20, 2010
10:07 P.M.

JARRATT -- Darick Demorris Walker was executed by injection tonight for the separate killings of two Richmond men.

Walker, 37, was pronounced dead at 9:24 p.m., said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. It was the second execution in the state this year and the 107th since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976.

At 8:55 p.m., Walker, a tall man wearing sandals and blue prison clothing, was escorted into the death chamber by officers. He was cooperative and appeared calm as he looked around the room and toward the witness viewing area, where one of the witnesses included his lawyer, Danielle Spinelli.

He was strapped into the gurney and a curtain was pulled to block the view while the IV lines were placed into his arms.

The curtains were opened again at 9:15 p.m. Asked if he had a last statement to make, Walker said, "Last words being: I don't think y'all done this right, took y'all too long to hook it up. You can print that. That's it." He was apparently referring to the intravenous lines used to administer the lethal injection.

Traylor later explained that there was a delay in placing one of the IV lines.

The first of three chemicals used in the execution began flowing. He took several deep breaths, his breathing grew shallower and then it stopped.

He was pronounced dead at 9:24 p.m. and the curtain was drawn again.

Outside the Greensville Correctional Center, where the execution took place, four death penalty protesters stood in silence, holding candles. They declined to comment.

State law permits the death penalty for someone who commits two premeditated murders within three years. Testimony and other evidence at his 1998 trial showed Walker shot two men to death in front of loved ones.

Rest of the story.....

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