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Death-row inmate set to be executed December 1 but prison says it has no death drugs

Jabberwocky

Frumious Bandersnatch
Joined
Nov 3, 1999
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A DEATH-ROW inmate set to die this week may have his life extended after making what is no doubt the biggest choice of his life.

Bobby Wayne Stone is scheduled to die on December 1 but has found a lifeline after the US state set to carry it out says it ran out of the drugs to perform the execution.
The execution of Mr Stone is South Carolina’s first since 2011 after the state’s supreme court denied his most recent appeal.

Mr Stone, 52, was convicted of murdering Sumter County sheriff Sgt Charlie Kubala in February, 1996, according to court documents. Stone, 31 at the time, had been drinking and wandering the woods when he approached a woman’s home and began shooting two newly purchased firearms. He shot the responding police officer Sgt Kubala twice but says that his gun went off accidentally during the shooting. He was convicted of murder, first degree burglary and sentenced to death in 1997. Despite years of legal to-and-fro, he has been sitting on death row for the last 20 years. His inmate report says there have been no escape attempts or disciplinary action in that time.

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Death row inmates in South Carolina can choose to be either executed by electric chair or lethal injection and in what could be a lifesaving decision Stone chose lethal injection. Though electrocution is an option, most inmates seldom choose the method.

According to the Department of Corrections website, the use of an electric chair in South Carolina began in 1912.

“A person convicted of a capital crime can elect to be executed either by lethal injection or electrocution,” the site reads. “This election must be made in writing fourteen days before the execution date.”

The United States has had a steady stream of executions this year, on track to end the year with two dozen lethal injections, up from 2016’s record low, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The problem for South Carolina is that its supplies of the drugs for its execution protocol — pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride — expired in 2013.

It now casts doubt over the future of Mr Stone’s execution and the 39 other inmates on South Carolina’s death row.

Supplies of death drugs in all 31 US states that carry out the death penalty have dwindled in recent years due to changes in legislation and after Europe, who once provided the drugs, caved to pressure from international human rights organisations.

Now, South Carolina’s Department of Corrections say drug companies won’t sell the lethal cocktail needed for injection to prisons for executions and that the killing of Stone will not be able to go forward.

Major pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell their drugs for executions and force wholesalers to do the same after individuals and organisations say they “fear retribution” after receiving threats. They now only supply to states on condition they are guaranteed anonymity.

South Carolina’s Governor, Henry McMaster, says he has made “intense efforts” to procure the three drugs, but he is unable to find a manufacturer willing to make provisions.

Governor McMaster is now calling for a law shielding the identity of the drug suppliers which means the seller of the death penalty drugs would remain a secret.

“They are afraid their names will be made known and they don’t want to have anything to do with it for fear of retribution,” McMaster said.

“We’re at a dead stop and we can’t do anything about it.

“The people of South Carolina have been clear in their support of justice, including the death penalty.”

Talking to press outside Lieber Correctional Institution, the state’s death row facility, near Ridgeville, South Carolina, director of the state’s corrections department Bryan Stirling claimed the secrecy was “for justice”.

“There are certain things, I think, the public has a right to know. In this case, I think the state wants to carry out justice,” Stirling said.

“The family deserves it, the Court has ordered it and we’re unable to carry out justice.

“Anytime we start the conversation with a company that makes the drugs … they ask, ‘How would they be protected?”

Other states, like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, have passed laws protecting the supplier’s identity, but in some cases, courts have overturned these laws and expressed their discontent.

The state of Nevada is currently in a stoush with Pfizer after the company demanded its diazepam be returned after it was purchased from a wholesaler for an upcoming execution. In May, 2016, Pfizer said it would block distribution of its drugs for executions in the 31 states that hold the death penalty. Nevada says it won’t give it back.

Earlier this month, the execution of Alva Campbell was described as “two hours of torture” after medical personnel failed to find a vein on the chronically ill patient during his execution.

“He did say it was a day he’d never forget,” said David Stebbins, Mr Campbell’s lawyer.

It was only the third time in modern US history an execution was stopped after it had already begun.

It’s unclear what exactly will happen to Stone next, if the legislation is not passed and the state finds itself without the necessary drugs.

“I warned about this a couple of years ago in the General Assembly when I testified and said, ‘We’re going to be here one day. What are we going to do?’” Mr Stirling warned.

According to the website, Stone might be forced into the electric chair.

“If execution by lethal injection is held to be unconstitutional by an appellate court of competent jurisdictions, the manner of inflicting a death sentence must be by electrocution,” its rules state.

The Sumter Item reports the execution “has been delayed in response to a court order from his attorneys”.


Source: http://www.news.com.au/world/north-...s/news-story/c1426cf4ec2daab3516f634a2a23bea0
 
Im not 100% sure of the legality of it, but why not just use a firing squad if we must have the death penalty? It certainly seems no less inhumane than torturing these people with drugs.
 
I think it helps the acceptability of capital punishment to make the killing as sterile as possible.
I'm glad australia stopped executing people in the 1960s
 
Time to stop this horrible practice. The state has no right to kill it's citizens
 
I think it helps the acceptability of capital punishment to make the killing as sterile as possible.
I'm glad australia stopped executing people in the 1960s

I agree but it is far from sterile, especially when they use various benzos that just dont pack the punch of a potent barbiturate. If we must do it, just do it quick. Bullet to the brain suffices.
 
true, killing anyone isa messy business.
i guess i'm also referring to things like the way the swab the inmate's arm first. madness
 
I know all options are ultimately grim, but the electric chair... c'mon man. It's like they wanted to include a whacky funhouse type option. They sure are a zany lot over at death row!! :\
 
I know all options are ultimately grim, but the electric chair... c'mon man. It's like they wanted to include a whacky funhouse type option. They sure are a zany lot over at death row!! :\
Florida's botched electric chair executions are exhibit A when it comes to doing away with it. Google Pedro Medina or Allen Lee Davis.
 
Just talking about FL. It takes so many years for them to eventually do it I'm sure back in the 80's or whenever the alleged crime was committed the cops were more likely to get somebody to stand trial on what could turn out to be flimsy evidence if the defendant had a decent lawyer. But I'm generally in favor of it for people like Bundy. This secretary I used to work with was there on his day with signage and expressed herself very vocally. At least that's what she said and I have no reason to doubt her. She was a small girl and I'm sure experienced a vulnerability that would be difficult for me to completely relate to. At least DNA is more reliable now.
 
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This is because Denmark (via Lundbeck) decided to stop supplying the US with pentobarbitone. Makes you wonder why they gave him a choice in the first place. The guillotine would be the next least painful execution method, strange that US states don't use it.
 
Among the many shames of my country, the persistence of the death penalty is one of the worst IMO.
 
This is because Denmark (via Lundbeck) decided to stop supplying the US with pentobarbitone. Makes you wonder why they gave him a choice in the first place. The guillotine would be the next least painful execution method, strange that US states don't use it.

They were able to still get it via compounding pharmacies but believe the suppliers of the raw powder also jumped ship. And the guillotine? From what I know it often did not chop off the ole head in one pass. That would hurt.
 
And the guillotine? From what I know it often did not chop off the ole head in one pass. That would hurt.

A modern one with enough mass and momentum could chop through a thick steel pipe so I'm sure a little bone would prove no trouble ;)
 
My advice to the guys who are doing the executions: lose the paralytic and the KCl. Stick to massive, massive, barbiturate OD's. Least they don't suffer that way.

The last thing I'd wish on anyone is to be paralyzed, conscious, and have some (effectively non-trained) tech fuck the KCl line and dump burning salt solution into your muscles.
 
I know all options are ultimately grim, but the electric chair... c'mon man. It's like they wanted to include a whacky funhouse type option. They sure are a zany lot over at death row!! :\

Nevada and a few other states used to offer a gas chamber as well, not very humane. A lot of states are doing away with executions anymore. I know they no longer do it here In illinois, because a bunch of guys who got put to death ended up being proven innocent post mortem. And I think Missouri has also done away with the death penalty.
 
I'd rather be gassed with nitrogen than shot or electrocuted, FYI.
 
My advice to the guys who are doing the executions: lose the paralytic and the KCl. Stick to massive, massive, barbiturate OD's. Least they don't suffer that way.

The last thing I'd wish on anyone is to be paralyzed, conscious, and have some (effectively non-trained) tech fuck the KCl line and dump burning salt solution into your muscles.

Yeah I always wondered how they arrived at that particular combination of drugs when the barbiturate alone is going to be 100% effective at a high enough dose.
 
I'd rather be gassed with nitrogen than shot or electrocuted, FYI.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't nitrogen, were talking almost Nazi like shit. It was stopped because it was completely inhumane, there was no drift off to sleep it was writhing in agony suffocating.
 
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