A US appeals court tosses out a ruling saying the Justice Department's new lethal injection protocol violated drug safety laws. — File pic
“The ruling basically allows the government to pick and choose when it will follow the law,” said Dale Baich, one of Nelson's lawyers.Since resuming federal executions after a 17-year hiatus in July, the Department of Justice has been injecting condemned inmates with lethal doses of pentobarbital, a highly regulated barbiturate. The department executed three murderers in July and a fourth on Wednesday.
“Where the government argues that a lethal injection drug is legally and constitutionally permissible because it will ensure a 'humane' death, it cannot then disclaim a responsibility to comply with federal statutes enacted to ensure that the drugs operate humanely,” Chutkan wrote in a 13-page opinion.
Prior to July, there had been only three federal executions since 1963, all between 2001 and 2003, all using sodium thiopental. As supplies of that drug vanished, Texas, Missouri and other states that use capital punishment switched to pentobarbital and the Justice Department announced last year it would follow suit.
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