In California, Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told a group of reporters that she expects Proposition 66, which passed in November 2016 on the dubious promise to speed up executions, to face more legal challenges. The state’s high court upheld the measure earlier this year, but Cantil-Sakauye did not take part in the ruling because she is on the Judicial Council, which will be implementing it. Capital Public Radio reports that Cantil-Sakauye said she expects challenges will come from a provision that cuts the salaries of the attorneys at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, while increasing their workload, and from a provision that attorneys not trained in death penalty work must accept capital cases when there is a backlog.
In Nevada and Nebraska, state officials are hoping to use the powerful opioid fentanyl to execute prisoners. The Washington Post reports that doctors and death penalty opponents warn that untested use of the drug “could lead to painful, botched executions, comparing the use of it and other new drugs proposed for lethal injection to human experimentation.” The Quartz reports that Nevada plans to administer a cocktail including a sedative, a paralytic, and fentanyl to Scott Dozier, who has given up all appeals, and says he’s ready to die. Nebraska officials plant to execute Jose Sandoval with fentanyl as well as medication to stop his heart.
In Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch reports that Gov. John Kasich insists there is no reason to review the state’s execution protocol in spite of the fact that Alva Campbell was removed from the death chamber last month when the execution team was unable to find suitable veins in the 69-year-old’s arms or legs to carry out the lethal injection. The paper says the failed attempt was the third in modern history in the U.S., and the second in Ohio during the past 10 years. Campbell’s execution has been rescheduled for June 2019.
In South Carolina, state officials canceled the December 1 execution of Bobby Wayne Stone because the state is unable to procure the drugs for its lethal injection cocktail. The New York Daily News reports another problem is that the state hasn’t passed a law that shields the identity of the manufacturers and pharmacists who provide the lethal drugs used in executions. “Many other death penalty states have laws shielding suppliers, including less-regulated compound pharmacies, to remain hidden from the public after complaints of threats,” the paper says. It was the state’s first scheduled execution in six years.