01-29-2014, 10:38 PM
Drugs kill...or not.
An appeal to stay an execution in Missouri was granted.
But, it wasn't because of uncertainties over the effects of new drug combos being used in lethal injections, rather because the state of Missouri refused to disclose the maker of the pentobarbital (one of the standard DP drugs) that was to be injected.
I can hear opponents of the death penalty here, and the anti-death penalty European pharmaceutical companies (who banned the export of pentobarbital to the US) cheering...
![[Image: getpublicfrontal1.jpeg.CROP.rtstoryvar-medium.jpeg]](https://www.theroot.com/content/dam/theroot/articles/culture/2014/01/missouri_death_row_inmate_s_life_spared_on_eve_of_execution/getpublicfrontal1.jpeg.CROP.rtstoryvar-medium.jpeg)
Smulls killed a jeweler and brutally injured his wife during a robbery back in 1991.
In their appeals for his execution to be stayed, his attorneys focused on the state's refusal to disclose from which compounding pharmacy they received the lethal-injection drug pentobarbital that was to be used on Smulls.
The State of Missouri argued that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, they could not release the compounding pharmacy's name to the public.
Smulls was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. today. He received word that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had signed the order granting his stay late last night.
An appeal to stay an execution in Missouri was granted.
But, it wasn't because of uncertainties over the effects of new drug combos being used in lethal injections, rather because the state of Missouri refused to disclose the maker of the pentobarbital (one of the standard DP drugs) that was to be injected.
I can hear opponents of the death penalty here, and the anti-death penalty European pharmaceutical companies (who banned the export of pentobarbital to the US) cheering...
Smulls killed a jeweler and brutally injured his wife during a robbery back in 1991.
In their appeals for his execution to be stayed, his attorneys focused on the state's refusal to disclose from which compounding pharmacy they received the lethal-injection drug pentobarbital that was to be used on Smulls.
The State of Missouri argued that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, they could not release the compounding pharmacy's name to the public.
Smulls was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. today. He received word that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had signed the order granting his stay late last night.