European boycott of death penalty drugs lowers rate of US executions
Source: The Guardian
The European-led boycott of medical drugs used by US corrections departments to execute prisoners is having such an impact that it has driven the number of executions to an almost all-time low, a leading authority on the death penalty has concluded.
The year-end report for 2013 from the Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, records that there were 39 executions this year – only the second time since 1994 that the number has fallen below 40. The report says a major factor behind the slump in judicial killings has been the difficulty states that still practice the death penalty are encountering in finding a consistent means of ending life.
California, Arkansas and North Carolina have all had effective moratoriums for the past seven years because they have failed to settle on a workable lethal injection protocol. Several other states are turning to untested drugs or to lethal medicines improvised in single batches by so-called “compounding pharmacies” that are not subject to federal regulations.
“The goal-posts keep shifting under the death penalty states,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and lead author of the report. “As soon as they move to a new protocol, the boycott spreads.”
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/death-penalty-boycott-drugs-execution-new-low
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