Nev. execution called off after drug firm’s lawsuit
LAS VEGAS — A Nevada judge effectively put the execution of a two-time killer on hold Wednesday after a pharmaceutical company objected to the use of one of its drugs to put someone to death.
Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez disallowed the use of the drug in a ruling that came down less than nine hours before Scott Raymond Dozier, 47, was to be executed with a t hreechemical injection never before tried in the country.
State prison officials later called off the 8 p.m. execution, and a judge issued an order indefinitely postponing it.
Despite the maneuvering around him, Dozier had repeatedly expressed his desire to be put to death and had stopped fighting for his life.
Dozier was sentenced to death in 2007 for robbing, killing and dismembering 22- year- old Jeremiah Miller at a Las Vegas motel in 2002. Miller had come to Nevada to buy ingredients to make meth.
In 2005, Dozier was sentenced to 22 years in prison for shooting to death another drug-trade associate.
At a hearing earlier Wednesday, New Jerseybased Alvogen had urged the judge to block the use of its sedative midazolam, saying the state illegally secured t he product through “subterfuge” and intended it for unapproved purposes. The pharmaceutical company also raised fears that the drug could lead to a botched execution, citing cases that ap- Dozier Attorney Todd Bice accused the state of Nevada of deceptively getting the Alvogen drug midazolam, a sedative. parently went awry elsewhere around the country.
Todd Bice, an attorney with Alvogen, accused the state of deceptively obtaining the drug by having it shipped to a pharmacy in Las Vegas rather than the state prison in Ely. He said Alvogen had sent a letter to state officials in April telling them it opposes the use of its products in executions, particularly with regard to midazolam.
The judge ruled that based on that letter, Alvogen had a reasonable chance of winning its lawsuit, and she issued the temporary restraining order against the use of the drug. Gonzalez set another hearing for Sept. 10.
Pharmaceutical companies have resisted the use of their drugs in executions for 10 years, citing legal and ethical concerns.
But the legal challenge filed by Alvogen is only the second of its kind in the country, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. The previous challenge, brought last year by a different company in Arkansas, was unsuccessful.
Alvogen said in a statement that it will continue to work to ensure its products are not used in executions.
A second pharmaceutical company, Sandoz, also raised objections at Wednesday’s hearing to the use of one of its drugs — the muscle-paralyzing substance cisatracurium — in Dozier’s execution. But the company did not ask to join Alvogen’s lawsuit.
A third company, Pfizer, last year demanded Nevada return the third drug intended for use in the execution, the opioid fentanyl. But the state refused. Fentanyl, which has been blamed for deadly overdoses across the country, has not been used before in an execution.
Jordan T. Smith, an assistant Nevada solicitor general, countered at Wednesday’s hearing that the state didn’t put up a “smokescreen” or do anything wrong in getting the drugs. He said drugs ordered by the state prison system are regularly shipped to Las Vegas.
Alvogen’s midazolam was substituted in May for Nevada’s expired stock of diazepam, commonly known as Valium. The drug is intended to render the inmate unconscious. Under Nevada’s new execution protocol, the inmate is next given fentanyl and then cisatracurium, one to slow his breathing, the other to stop it.
Bice said Alvogen opposes the use of the drug in a way that is contrary to its purpose — saving and improving lives.