Early this morning, Michael Taylor became the
fourth inmate in four months to be executed by the state of
Missouri with drugs obtained from unknown sources. Taylor was on
death row for abducting, raping, and murdering a 15-year-old girl
in 1989.
Missouri has a history of flouting the law when it comes to its
recent executions. Last month, the state executed convicted
murderer Herbert Smulls with pentobarbital that was
likely illegally obtained from The Apothecary Shoppe, an
Oklahoma compounding pharmacy not licensed to do business in the
state of Missouri.
Missouri executed Smulls
while his appeal was still pending in the United States Supreme
Court. The Supreme Court denied Smulls’ final stay request at 10:24
p.m., but Smulls was pronounced dead four minutes earlier at 10:20
p.m. This was the third straight execution carried out by Missouri
corrections officials while appeals were still being considered by
courts. Taylor, however, was executed after his appeals were
denied.
Little is known about the drugs used to execute these four men
prior to their executions. Indeed, a number of states that still
carry out the death penalty, including Missouri, have become much
more secretive about where they have been procuring execution drugs
from since European suppliers of the two FDA-approved drugs made
them unavailable for executions in the United States in 2010 and
2011.
While Smulls and the other men were executed with drugs likely
obtained from the Apothecary Shoppe, the compounding pharmacy
agreed to not provide the state with drugs for Taylor’s
execution. Last week, state officials
announced they had obtained pentobarbital from another unnamed
source. Information about the source and the drug is crucial to
know, as unknown or untested drugs are more likely to result in a
painful death, therefore resulting in cruel and unusual
punishment.
Without this information, lawyers are left only to assume the
state carried out this and previous executions in a way that
respected the constitutional rights of the condemned.
A similar story will play out in Florida this evening. Tonight,
Florida is set to
execute Paul Howell, who was convicted of killing a state
highway patrolman with a pipe bomb in 1992. Howell will be the
fourth person executed in Florida with a new combination of drugs
that have been challenged by lawyers of condemned prisoners as a
violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and
unusual punishment. So far, challenges to the state have been
unsuccessful, and it’s likely that Howell’s execution will take
place as scheduled.
In 2013, Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the
“Timely Justice Act” into law, which seeks to accelerate the
state’s death penalty process. The law
requires the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of
the conclusion of clemency review and schedule an execution date
within 180 days after the warrant is signed. Florida currently has
403 inmates on death row. Since 1976, 77 men have been executed in
Florida, and 24 Florida death row prisoners have been exonerated –
more than any other state.
Recent executions in Missouri and Florida highlight a troubling
trend that’s been taking place across the country. States, with
little to no oversight, are shoving new and experimental drugs into
criminals’ veins while keeping information about these drugs a
closely guarded secret.
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