Death-penalty opposition slowly winning debate

Last year, 30 people were sentenced to death.

“The vast majority of prosecutors these days will never even seek the death penalty,” Smith said. One reason, he said, is that jurors are less likely to be sold on it. Life sentences without parole, Smith said, are seen as a better option.

Some district attorneys and state attorneys general have gone a step further, promising to not push for death sentences. One of them is District Attorney Aramis Ayala of Orlando, Fla., who vowed last month to not seek the death penalty in her cases. Governors of several states, including Washington, Oregon and Colorado, have also imposed moratoriums on the death penalty while they are in office.

Controversial drugs used in executions are in short supply and pharmaceutical companies are taking a stand.

The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, defended the state’s string of planned executions this month by saying it needed to carry them out before the drugs it uses expire.

“It is uncertain as to whether another drug can be obtained,” Hutchinson said in a statement.

One of the drugs in question is midazolam, a sedative that’s part of a threedrug cocktail the state uses in lethal injections. It has been tied to several faulty executions.

Another drug used in the state is vecuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer. McKesson Corp., a medical supplier that sold the drug to Arkansas, took the state to court over it. The company said Arkansas purchased the drug, which is only intended for medical use, under false pretenses.

The controversy over drugs goes beyond Arkansas and extends to the federal government.

In one example, the Texas prison system filed suit this month against the Food and Drug Administration, which seized 1,000 vials of an execution drug whose importation was banned in 2015. The state purchased the drug, sodium thiopental, from India, and the FDA wants it shipped back or destroyed. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice argues that law enforcement agencies are exempt from the ban.

Major court cases loom as states re-examine policies.

Outside of Arkansas and Texas, several other court cases over the death penalty are looming.

In Cincinnati, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled in June to have the full court consider whether the state’s use of a three-drug cocktail in lethal injections is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Earlier, a three-judge panel in the appeals court had upheld a stay that kept the state using the procedure in executions.

In California, the Supreme Court is expected to decide this summer on challenges to a voter-approved proposition that reduces the time allowed for appeals of death sentences. The new rule was intended to speed up executions in the state, where there are nearly 750 people on death row. The state is considered a “symbolic” death penalty state because capital punishment is legal but has not been used since 2006.

States are also reconsidering their use of the death penalty.

In Oklahoma, a state commission said last week that a moratorium on the death penalty should be extended until the system for carrying out sentences is changed so that innocent people do not die.