Pentobarbital has been used for capital punishment in the United States. Several pharmaceuticals have been testing the deadly chemical substance without knowing its intended use for lethal injections.
The deadly substance, also known by the brand name Nembutal by Abbott Pharmaceuticals, causes respiratory arrest. In smaller doses, it has been prescribed for insomnia and is also used to humanely euthanize animals.
Using the drug for capital punishment has been abandoned by several states until the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its intention to bring back pentobarbital for federal death-row inmates in 2019.
'Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people's representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,' Attorney General Barr announced in 2019. 'The Justice Department upholds the rule of law-and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.'
Supreme Court and 14 states have been using pentobarbital in more than 200 executions since 2010 said the DOJ. Sam Spital from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said, 'Nobody knows if the pentobarbital that the government has obtained will address the serious risks that individuals across the country are facing of being tortured to death through lethal injection.'
Testing Pentobarbital
One company that was mentioned in a recent Reuters investigation, DynaLabs, had said that they will no longer test the drug for the DOJ if it is intended for executions. Thought to have been testing the purity of the drug, they said that their lab did now know samples came from the DOJ in the first place. Since April last year, the company has been receiving 50-milliliter vials of the drug.
DynaLabs also said that they will ask their sources to make sure that their tests are not intended for capital punishment. To their knowledge, they have been testing the drug for doses that doctors use to treat seizures and other conditions.
'It will be our policy going forward to require a statement from our client indicating their preparation will not be used for execution,' said Michael Pruett and Russell Odegard, the co-founders of DynaLabs. 'Clients that decline to make that declaration will not be allowed to submit their pentobarbital preparations to DynaLabs for testing.'
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Federal Execution
Convicted criminal Daniel Lewis Lee was scheduled for execution on July 13, which was delayed by a district court in Washington, D.C. This would have been the first federal execution since 2003.
Lee is convicted of killing a family in 1996. His case and four other federal executions have been delayed due to unsettled issues regarding pentobarbital.
Judge Tanya Chutkan explained, 'The court... finds that the likely harm that plaintiffs would suffer if the court does not grant injunctive relief far outweighs any potential harm to defendants.' Pruett added, 'We decided seven or eight years ago we were not going to test for compounds that were being used for putting anyone to death.'
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