Drug Used In Federal Executions May Cause 'Unnecessary Pain And Suffering,' DOJ Says

LOADING ERROR LOADING WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is rescinding its protocol for federal executions that allowed for single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital, after a government review raised concerns about the potential for “unnecessary pain and suffering.” Attorney General Merrick Garland’s order to withdraw the lethal injection policy comes days before President-elect Donald Trump, who is expected to restart federal executions, is set to return to the White House. The department’s review of scientific and medical research found there remains “significant uncertainty about whether the use of pentobarbital as a single drug lethal injection causes unnecessary pain and suffering,” according to a report published Wednesday. Garland said it should not be reinstated ”unless and until that uncertainty is resolved.” The report from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy noted that the Food and Drug Administration “has not reviewed or approved of the use of pentobarbital in high doses or for the purpose of causing death.” The pentobarbital protocol was adopted by Bill Barr, attorney general during Trump’s first term, to replace a three-drug mix used in the 2000s, the last time federal executions were carried out before Trump was in office. Shawn Nolan, a lawyer who has represented people on federal death row, said in a statement that the report makes clear that “no jurisdiction, federal or state, should continue using this cruel, unconstitutional execution method.” The chief of the federal public defender’s habeas unit in Nashville, Tennessee, Kelley Henry, said the review was “a damning condemnation of the use of pentobarbital to poison prisoners to death” and that Tennessee “should rescind its execution protocol immediately.” Biden’s decision commute the sentences of most of the people on death row spared the lives of people convicted in killings, including those of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.