Nevada blasted for execution plan

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Prison officials in Nevada drew immediate criticism Friday for proposing an untried three-drug combination for the scheduled Nov. 14 lethal injection of a twice-convicted murderer who says he wants his execution sentence carried out.

The state has supplies of the sedative diazepam, the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl and the muscle paralytic cisatracurium it proposes to use to carry out the execution of 46-year-old Scott Raymond Dozier, Nevada Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Keast said.

Nevada, like other states, is struggling to obtain execution drugs because European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections.

Prison administrators didn’t respond to questions including who will have the final say about what drugs are used, how the three medications were obtained, what order they would be administered and who will be in the Ely State Prison death chamber for Dozier’s execution, which would be the first in the state in 11 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and an official at the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic in California raised other questions, and said they fear Dozier will suffer and suffocate while he’s conscious and paralyzed, but that observers won’t be able to tell.

We don’t know how this will go,” said Jen Moreno, a death penalty clinic attorney involved in lethal injection challenges in other states. “When we’ve asked that question before, it has not gone well.”