America's Death Penalty Loses an Ally

In a victory for Change.org members and human rights advocates everywhere, British Business Secretary Vince Cable agreed this week to classify the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental alongside guillotines as execution equipment that cannot be supplied by the United Kingdom. Change.org members joined the British human rights organization Reprieve and other activists around the world in calling on Secretary Cable to abide by European Union regulations by imposing the ban. A statement from the British Secretary of State noted that the ban “would serve to underline the United Kingdom’s moral opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances.”

The U.S. has always had a complicated relationship with the U.K., our older sibling or parent or whatever familial metaphor makes the most sense without being gender biased. We saved their ass in World War II, they’ll save our ass in World War III, with the usual camaraderie and probably some grumbling. So maybe when our state corrections departments hear about the ban on lethal injection exports, they’ll see the action as just a little nudge from a friend. As in: “Hey America, stop killing people. Especially with our stuff.”

The export ban could have a significant impact on executions in the United States. The only supplier of lethal injection drugs in the U.S. (and the only one in the world approved by the FDA) has been out of supply for nearly a year, holding up executions in several states. A number of states have recently come across new supplies, but refused to disclose their source. Arizona finally admitted to receiving the drug from an undisclosed firm in England, sparking the controversy in the U.K., but went ahead and used it to execute Jeffrey Landrigan without bothering to disclose the manufacturer or allowing defense attorneys to examine their supply.

That led a number of groups – and Change.org members worldwide – to call on Secretary Cable to back up the U.K.’s principled stand on the death penalty by banning the export of lethal injection drugs. Originally Cable refused, arguing that there was a legitimate sodium thiopental market for actual doctors treating actual patients. But new information confirms that U.S. law prohibits the importation of any non-FDA approved drug; any thiopental imported into the U.S. would be illegal for medical use anyway, meaning the only possible use for the European export is capital punishment.

That makes Cable's decision a no-brainer pursuant to U.K. and E.U. law. Medical uses for exported European thiopental are about as “legitimate” as using a guillotine for slicing onions.

Meanwhile, California and Texas are continuing to flout the law by not disclosing the sources of their thiopental supplies. The Texas Attorney General recently ordered corrections officials to immediately release all information regarding their stash of the drugs, but attorneys for the prison system are blatantly refusing to comply with the order. In California, a Public Records Act request from the ACLU led the state to admit that at least some of the records were in fact public, but it continues to withhold them without so much as an explanation.

When that led the ACLU to file a lawsuit seeking the courts to enforce the law, the state revealed that it intended to release the documents, but first wanted to make a massive “to go” order: 521 grams of sodium thiopental – enough to kill 173 people. Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California, told Change.org this was a continuing violation of the law.

“Intentionally withholding public records is a crime. It seems to us that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation broke the law, is breaking it now, and is likely to violate it again in the future,” Minsker said. “This kind of behavior by the government is one reason California taxpayers support replacing our overpriced, overburdened and ineffective death penalty system with life in prison with absolutely no possibility of parole.”

While states like Texas and California scramble to find loopholes allowing them to execute prisoners without telling the public how, grassroots activists should continue to make the death penalty harder and harder to implement. The loss of the U.K. as one possible accomplice in state killing means governments will have to look elsewhere to re-up their stash, and increased pressure from the public could make that impossible. You can tell Hospira, Inc, the sole FDA-approved manufacturer of sodium thiopental in the world, to follow Britain’s example and refuse to be complicit in America’s death penalty.

Photo Credit: Hellerick