Louisiana Tricked a Local Hospital Into Supplying Execution Drugs

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new piece published by The Lens reveals that the
Louisiana Department of Corrections (LDOC) tricked a local hospital
into supplying it with drugs it intended to use for an execution
that has since been delayed.

According to
documents obtained and published by The Lens‘s Della
Hasselle, the Louisiana Department of Corrections placed an order
for one of the two execution drugs it needed, hydromorphone, with
Lake Charles Memorial Hospital on January 28^th—eight
days before condemned child-killer Christopher Sepulvado was
scheduled to be executed. The state already had the other drug it
needed, midazolam, in stock at the time it placed the order,
although the origin of that drug is still unknown.

When the hospital filled the hydromorphone order for LDOC, they
assumed it was going to be used to treat sick inmates housed at
Louisiana’s
Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, not to kill a death row inmate
housed at the state penitentiary.  

A spokesman for the Lake Charles Memorial Hospital
told local Louisiana news outlet, KPLC, “At no time did [the
hospital] believe or was led to believe that the drug would be used
for an execution.” Instead, a pharmacist at Elayn Hunt Correctional
center told the hospital “they needed the drug, hydromorphone, for
a medical patient.”

Ulysses Gene Thibodeaux, a board member for Lake Charles
Memorial Hospital told The Lens, “Had we known of the real
use, we never would have done it.”

This isn’t the first time Louisiana has used shady tactics in an
attempt to obtain lethal injection drugs.
Emails released by the publication in January reveal that
Louisiana prison officials explored
illegally obtaining pentobarbital last September from a
compounding pharmacy in Oklahoma that was not licensed to do
business in Louisiana.

However, it appears that this is the first time a state has
openly lied to a hospital in order to obtain drugs it wanted to use
for an execution. What’s more, Louisiana broke its own
execution protocol in the process, since the drug was ordered
22 days after it was supposed to have already been in stock.

Ultimately, Sepulvado’s execution was
delayed for at least six-months in order for prison officials
to review the “most effective” dosage levels of lethal drugs for
its protocol. This delay came shortly after
Clayton Lockett’s botched execution in Oklahoma, which was
carried out using one of the same drugs Louisiana intended to use
on Sepulvado.

It’s unclear if any actions will be taken against the state in
light of this new information. According to Hasselle, “A hospital
spokesman hasn’t responded to comment when I asked if Lake Charles
had any plans to sue the LDOC.”

Louisiana state officials have refused to comment on the story,
which—let’s be honest—shouldn’t be all that surprising at this
point.