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State Sets Execution Date Despite No Supply of Lethal Injection Drug

July 5th, 2013

This week Georgia attorney general Sam Olens announced the execution date for death row inmate Warren Lee Hill, Jr.

The circumstances surrounding Hill have garnered national and international attention because advocates and attorneys say Hill is mentally disabled and should not be executed.

Hill’s quest for a new hearing now lies with the United States Supreme Court.

But there’s another issue regarding the execution.

In the last legal round regarding Warren Lee Hill, Jr, the Eleventh U.S Circuit Court of Appeals denied his petition.

That denial vacated the February 19^th ruling that granted a conditional stay of execution.

This is now the third execution date set for Hill.

But what isn’t clear is why the state set the date when the Department of Corrections does not have in supply the execution drug, Pentobarbital.

WABE legal analyst Page Pate says that’s baffling.

“I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a situation like this before where they’ve set the date and then not have the drug available and then move the date after the date was set. So, somebody is going to move this date.”

And that says Pate could be based on one of two actions.

“Either it’s going to be the Supreme Court having to issue another stay in the case or the department of corrections and the attorney general’s office will recognize that they literally cannot carry out the execution without the required drug.”

In an email to WABE, the Georgia department Corrections acknowledged they did not currently have Pentobarbital in supply, but expected to have the drug by July 15^th, Warren Lee Hill’s scheduled execution date.

When asked from where the drug was being procured, spokesperson Raschad Hollis replied,

“That is all the information I can release at this time.”

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Georgia is one of seven states that have used a single-drug method for executions.

And Georgia is among many other states that are having problems buying Pentobarbital.

Many of the pharmaceutical companies that make the drug are overseas.

Because those companies oppose the death penalty they have been refusing to sell to U.S prisons.

But some states are turning to compounding pharmacies which will put together a single dose of the lethal injection drug.

Just this year Governor Nathan Deal signed into a law that the identity of a manufacturer or supplier of the lethal injection drug would be kept secret.