The Department of Corrections on Friday said it has approved a new drug for its lethal-injection procedure, clearing the way for the state to begin executing condemned killers once again.
The department will switch from sodium thiopental, which had been used for years, to the barbituate pentobarbital. Sodium thiopental is no longer manufactured in the U.S., and Georgia's supply was recently confiscated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, putting executions on hold.
Corrections spokeswoman Kristen Stancil said the agency does not currently have a supply of pentobarbital, but she said the drug is readily available and the agency is licensed to possess it.
"It's been proven effective in other states, and we've looked at extensive medical testimony concerning the drug," she said. Pentobarbital, a sedative, will be used as the first of three lethal-injections drugs, followed by pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer that stops breathing, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.
There are no executions scheduled in Georgia, but execution warrants are expected to be signed soon.
Two death-row inmates -- Troy Anthony Davis and Andrew Grant DeYoung -- stand to be the first scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeals of Davis, sentenced to death for killing an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989. On Monday, the high court turned away appeals from DeYoung, sentenced to death for killing his parents and 14-year-old sister at their Cobb County home in 1993.
"Victims of these horrendous crimes deserve to see justice and this to me appears to be a step forward in that direction," Douglas County District Attorney David McDade said. "I commend the state officials for resolving this problem."
Laura Moye of Amnesty International USA, said, "Whether the state uses chemicals, bullets or electricity, the death penalty is inherently cruel and inhuman, and is part of an error-prone system that has sent far too many innocent people to death row. Replacing the supply of sodium thiopental amounts to nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental was seized by the DEA in March after DeYoung's lawyers told the Justice Department that Corrections had violated federal drug laws last year when it purchased its supply from a pharmaceutical company that operated out of the back of a storefront driving school in London. Stancil, the corrections spokeswoman, said the agency has yet to receive DEA's formal report of its review.
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