Washington — Lawyers for two men facing imminent execution in the United States lodged appeals amid ongoing controversy over the choice of drugs used to carry out lethal injections.
Convicted double murderer Herbert Smulls is due to be executed overnight Wednesday and Thursday in Missouri, while Christopher Sepulvado, guilty of beating and scalding his six-year-old step-son to death in 1992, is faces execution on February 5 in Louisiana.
The two executions are due to carried out using a lethal dose of pentobarbital manufactured by a compounding pharmacy whose identity has not been revealed, lawyers for the condemned men.
The failure to reveal the identity of the pharmacy has raised fears that the barbiturate was tested and approved by the same lab that has tested the drugs used for two controversial executions carried out recently in Oklahoma.
Michael Lee Wilson, executed in Oklahoma on January 9, complained that he could feel his whole body "burning" has he was put to death.
An expert cited by lawyers for Smulls meanwhile said the Oklahoma lab was believed to have approved drugs produced in Massachusetts responsible for an outbreak of meningitis in November 2012.
Lawyers for Smulls and Sepulvado lodged appeals in several federal courts on Monday for the executions to be suspended until the identity of the pharmacy was revealed
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Convicted double murderer Herbert Smulls is due to be executed overnight Wednesday and Thursday in Missouri, while Christopher Sepulvado, guilty of beating and scalding his six-year-old step-son to death in 1992, is faces execution on February 5 in Louisiana.
The two executions are due to carried out using a lethal dose of pentobarbital manufactured by a compounding pharmacy whose identity has not been revealed, lawyers for the condemned men.
The failure to reveal the identity of the pharmacy has raised fears that the barbiturate was tested and approved by the same lab that has tested the drugs used for two controversial executions carried out recently in Oklahoma.
Michael Lee Wilson, executed in Oklahoma on January 9, complained that he could feel his whole body "burning" has he was put to death.
An expert cited by lawyers for Smulls meanwhile said the Oklahoma lab was believed to have approved drugs produced in Massachusetts responsible for an outbreak of meningitis in November 2012.
Lawyers for Smulls and Sepulvado lodged appeals in several federal courts on Monday for the executions to be suspended until the identity of the pharmacy was revealed
continue to read here
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