Tennessee’s barely functioning death penalty is on the verge of
revival after state officials finally settled on a new lethal injection
drug and scheduled a man to die for the first time in more than a year.
But the state’s new method is already running into trouble in other states, thanks to new problems acquiring drugs for executions.
The state hasn’t had any drugs to perform lethal injections since its supply of sodium thiopental was seized by federal law enforcement agencies in April 2011 over questions about how it was obtained. It hasn’t put anyone to death in nearly four years and hadn’t had an execution scheduled since February 2012.
But last month, the state said it had solved its lethal injection drug problem by switching to pentobarbital, an anesthetic most commonly used to euthanize pets. State officials scheduled Nickolus Johnson, convicted of killing a policeman in Bristol in 2004, to die on April 22, 2014, at 7:10 p.m.
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But the state’s new method is already running into trouble in other states, thanks to new problems acquiring drugs for executions.
The state hasn’t had any drugs to perform lethal injections since its supply of sodium thiopental was seized by federal law enforcement agencies in April 2011 over questions about how it was obtained. It hasn’t put anyone to death in nearly four years and hadn’t had an execution scheduled since February 2012.
But last month, the state said it had solved its lethal injection drug problem by switching to pentobarbital, an anesthetic most commonly used to euthanize pets. State officials scheduled Nickolus Johnson, convicted of killing a policeman in Bristol in 2004, to die on April 22, 2014, at 7:10 p.m.
continue to read here