Georgia AG Carr fights drugmaker’s attempt to stop Nevada execution

The gurney used for lethal injections sits behind glass windows in a small cinder block building at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. (Ben Gray/Staff)

The gurney used for lethal injections sits behind glass windows in a small cinder block building at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. (Ben Gray/Staff)

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is opposing a drug company’s effort to prevent its products from being used in executions.

Carr is one of 15 state attorneys general who submitted a brief last week in a Nevada death penalty lawsuit.

The drug company, Alvogen, sued to prevent the state of Nevada from using its sedative midazolam in its first execution since 2006, according to The Associated Press.

The attorneys general called the lawsuit part of a “guerrilla war against the death penalty.”

"If Alvogen is allowed to succeed, there is a substantial risk that pharmaceutical companies — prodded by anti-death penalty activists and the defense bar — will flood the courts with similar last-minute filings every time a state attempts to see justice done," according to the brief in the case before the Nevada Supreme Court.

Thirty-one states, including Georgia, allow the death penalty.

Carr’s office represents Georgia in death penalty appeals and is obligated under state law “to ensure that lawfully imposed sentences are carried out,” said Katie McCreary, a spokeswoman Carr.

The 15 attorneys general who signed the brief are from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Carr also was one of 14 attorneys general who last week opposed delaying executions in a similar case involving executions in Nebraska. That case is pending in federal court.