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| Mississippi: A new supply of execution drugs. |
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi prison officials have obtained new supplies of execution drugs, which could allow the state to carry out lethal injections after some other drugs expired, they said in court papers.
The state provided that information Monday in an ongoing lawsuit over its execution methods.
Mississippi's new execution secrecy law should block lawyers for death row inmates from finding out too much about the state's plans to administer the death penalty, the state said.
Among the things the state wants is a federal judge to protect the identity of the drug supplier, as well as any clues in other documents about who that supplier might be.
Lawyers for death row inmates, though, are asking U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate to force the state to provide more information about Department of Corrections' drug-buying effort, saying it's necessary to pursue their lawsuit challenging Mississippi's current execution method.
The court showdown will determine whether the state law can trump a federal lawsuit on the subject.
Attorney General Jim Hood told The Associated Press in June that he hopes to ask the Mississippi Supreme Court to set execution dates for Richard Jordan and Thomas Loden Jr. this year.
Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, in part because of the legal challenges and the drug shortages.
Both Loden and Jordan have filed fresh appeals since they lost state appeals over the use of midazolam and Jordan is also still seeking a rehearing, so it's unclear when executions can move forward.
Source: MySA, AP, Jeff Amy, August 16, 2017
State’s Longest-Sitting Death Row Inmate Challenges Death Penalty Drug
JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court has sentenced Richard Jordan to death four times, but with the help of his lawyers, he continues to challenge the state's death penalty method.
In July, Jordan filed his second petition for post-conviction relief, continuing to challenge Mississippi's proposed use of midazolam as a part of its lethal injection.
Earlier this summer, the state's high court denied Jordan's first petition for post-conviction relief, which challenged the Mississippi Department of Corrections' use of midazolam as well as the constitutionality of executing an inmate who has been on death row for more than 40 years due to legal delays. Jordan was first tried and convicted in July 1976 for kidnapping and murdering Edwina Marter in Harrison County, leaving her body on a logging trail.
His case continued to face legal hiccups, however, with both court precedent and then the U.S. Supreme Court vacating his death sentence in the 1980s because Jordan had not been allowed to present evidence of "his adaptability to prison." In 2001 the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Jordan's fourth death sentence, which he has appealed and challenged since.
This year, the Mississippi Supreme Court decided to ignore Jordan's midazolam challenge, despite three justices agreeing that the case warranted more attention because the Legislature amended its death-penalty statute in the 2017 legislative session.
Avoiding 'Severe Pain'
Previously, state law required the lethal injection's three-drug combination to begin with a "continuous intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of an ultra short-acting barbiturate or other similar drug."
Now, the law requires "the sequential intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of the following combination of substances: a) an appropriate anesthetic or sedative; b) a chemical paralytic agent; and c) potassium chloride, or other similarly effective substance."
The new law further defines an "appropriate anesthetic or sedative" as one that means a substance that "if properly administered in a sufficient quantity is likely to render the condemned inmate unconscious, so that the execution process should not entail a substantial risk of severe pain."
Jordan's latest petition challenges the new law, arguing that midazolam is not "an appropriate anesthetic or sedative." Jordan's lawyer, James Craig, the co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center, argues that midazolam is not capable of making Jordan unconscious like state law says it should.
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Source: Jackson Free Press, Arielle Dreher, August 16, 2017
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