Arizona Death Row

DOJ Tells Arizona it Illegally Obtained Death Penalty Drug

Hours before the scheduled execution of an Arizona death row inmate, the Department of Justice informed the state that it should not use a controversial drug as part of the execution protocol because the state had illegally obtained the drug from a foreign source.

The last-minute move stunned lawyers for convicted murderer Donald Beaty who had argued for months that Arizona hadn't been in compliance with federal law regarding the importation of sodium thiopental, one of the three drugs commonly used for lethal injection executions . The drug is no longer manufactured in the U.S.

The Arizona Supreme Court delayed Beaty's scheduled execution by several hours and Beaty is now set to die at 7:30pm MST.

Arizona had consistently argued that it had properly obtained the drug.

In a filing with the Arizona's Supreme Court the state's Attorney General said that it in order to "avoid questions about the legality " of the drug it had decided to comply with the request from United States Associate Deputy Attorney General Deborah A. Johnston.

In the filing it said it planned to substitute another fast-acting barbiturate?pentobarbital?for the sodium thiopental. Arizona law allows it to change its protocol without hearings and legislative review required by some other states?

Long before the surprise announcement from Arizona's prison, Dale Baich, Beaty's public defender, had contacted the Department of Justice seeking guidance why the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had seized the drug from five other states this year but not Arizona.

The DEA seized the imported drug from Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee informing prison officials that it believed they had failed to follow federal importation laws. But the agency it did not seize the drug from Arizona and four other states who had also obtained the drug from abroad.

In his letters to Washington Baich had argued that he believed that Arizona had also failed to properly import the drug and that its supply should also have been seized.

"I sent three letters to the DOJ and made calls to the DEA that were not returned," said Baich. He said that he was at a loss to understand why the agency hadn't treated all the states uniformly.

After the announcement Baich said, "The question of whether Arizona legally imported the drug has now been answered."

Sodium thiopental is used to induce a coma like unconsciousness. It is usually followed by another drug that paralyzes the inmate and a third that induces cardiac arrest. Should the first drug be ineffective, a prisoner could feel tremendous pain by the time the third drug is injected.

Lawyers seek to delay executions of Arizona death row inmates

 Attorneys and criminal lawyers often use stays of execution as a last ditch attempt to avoid the death penalty for their clients, or at the very least preserving them precious moments before the carrying out of a penalty. At the same time, each day an inmate is kept on death row costs the taxpayers of the state in which they are being held more and more money. One inmate has been on death row for over 20 years! Will be very interesting to see how these cases play out.

Posted by: Phoenix Arizona Criminal Lawyer and Attorney

Full article below.

PHOENIX (AP) — Lawyers are seeking to delay the upcoming executions of two Arizona death-row inmates, one for DNA testing and the other because he was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Richard Lynn Bible is set to be executed at a state prison in Florence on June 30, and Thomas Paul West ‘s execution is scheduled for July 19.

Both men’s attorneys recently filed motions to stay their executions, with Bible’s lawyer arguing that he wants DNA testing that could exonerate his client, and West’s saying that his client had ineffective lawyers and his recent diagnosis of PTSD likely would have gotten him a lesser sentence.

Bible, 49, has been on death row since 1990 after being convicted of raping and fatally bludgeoning a 9-year-old Yuma girl on vacation with her family in Flagstaff. Bible has always said he was innocent of the crime.

With just two weeks until Bible’s scheduled execution, his attorney filed a motion for a stay with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco so he can have more time to get DNA testing on hairs that were used as evidence in his trial.

“The public has no interest in seeing an execution carried out as punishment inflicted while Bible is seeking to have evidence that was used against him DNA tested,” wrote his attorney, Daniel Maynard , in a Wednesday filing. “Allowing such an unconstitutional execution to proceed would undermine the public’s confidence in Arizona’s criminal justice system. DNA evidence can exonerate Bible and render the jury’s verdict in this case unsafe.”

Maynard also is asking the court to grant his appeal of a lower court’s ruling that denied appointing the Arizona Federal Public Defender’s Office to help in Bible’s case.

Maynard argues that attorneys at the office are much more familiar with death penalty cases and that the caseload is much too large for him to handle himself, thus depriving Bible of his right to due process.

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