Nevada execution drug controversial

A sedative that Nevada prison officials plan to use next week for the first lethal injection in the state since 2006 has been blamed for problems during executions in recent years in several other states.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the drug, midazolam, can be used in lethal injections. But the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada pointed Thursday to Arizona’s decision to stop using it following an execution that took nearly two hours to kill Joseph Rudolph Wood a year earlier.

“Midazolam has a terrible track record,” ACLU spokesman Wesley Juhl said, referring to a drug that observers have seen leaving inmates apparently struggling to breathe before they are pronounced dead. The ACLU characterizes the plan for Scott Raymond Dozier’s lethal injection next week less humane than putting down a pet.

“Midazolam has been implicated in seriously botched and observably troublesome executions in at least five states,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. He named Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida and Ohio.

“While Nevada may hope that it works, the frequency with which it fails could mean Scott Dozier is conscious and aware when the fentanyl starts to kill him and the paralytic is administered,” Dunham said.