Drug’s ‘off-label’ use for Georgia's executions is wrong

By Helen Prejean

Executioners in Georgia are preparing to act today, but it isn’t business as usual.

They can’t get the drug ordinarily used for lethal injection, so they’ve settled on a substitute called Nembutal, a sedative commonly used before surgery to induce sleep. The problem is, the state tried this “fill-in” drug once before, with results so disastrous the drug’s Danish manufacturer has taken extraordinary steps to stop its use in executions. Georgia should do the same.

Sodium thiopental, the drug originally used in the three-drug “cocktail” is unavailable. Hospira, the only U.S. producer of sodium thiopental, announced in January it would no longer market the drug because it could not guarantee it would not get in the hands of executioners. This guarantee was required by the Italian parliament, when it discovered Hospira wanted to use its plant in Italy to make the lethal drug. The Italians are against the death penalty, as are the Danes, all of Europe and a majority of U.N. members.

Georgia then settled on a substitute drug, Nembutal, which the state used to execute Roy Blankenship on June 23 despite it being a clear “off-label” use — a deliberate administration of the drug that does not comport with its manufacturer’s constraints.

That execution went badly. According to an Associated Press reporter who attended, Blankenship lurched, gasped and jerked around on the gurney after the injection, and was making swallowing motions a full three minutes later. He did not become motionless until four minutes had passed and was not declared dead for several minutes more. His eyes never closed.

Despite this appalling result, Georgia is planning to execute Andrew DeYoung today, using the same drug.

Lundbeck, the Danish manufacturer, said on July 1 it would institute a special distribution plan for Nembutal in the U.S. to ensure it could not be misused in executions. In addition, Lundbeck’s Illinois office wrote Gov. Nathan Deal and asked that Georgia immediately end the use of Nembutal to execute prisoners, because “it contradicts everything we are in business to do — provide therapies that improve people’s lives.”

It’s no secret that I am opposed to the death penalty. I believe it is a profound moral contradiction to give the state the power to kill in order to prove murder is wrong. I believe the terrible pain experienced by victims’ family members and survivors is only increased once they are caught up in the machinery of state-sponsored death.

But that’s not the reason we should all be appalled if this execution is carried out today.

Georgia cannot proceed with this execution using the hastily substituted Nembutal, knowing there is a substantial risk of causing suffering and a lingering death.

It’s unconstitutional, it’s inhumane, it violates national and international law. It doesn’t matter what you think of the death penalty, really; this isn’t legal, and it isn’t right.

Indeed, as I travel the country speaking with people about capital punishment, many who are undecided about the issue take comfort in the strength of our legal protections and the system of laws we hold up to the rest of the world. That will be cold comfort indeed if Georgia proceeds with this execution.

The company that makes Nembutal wants it used to help people, not kill them. Georgia should let them recall this drug, as it would any drug that is defective or being misused. As used in executions, the drug causes suffering that is unacceptable under our law and to our conscience. It can’t just be Europeans who think so.

Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph Medaille, is the author of “Dead Man Walking” and “Death of Innocents.”