In 2018, the director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections admitted defeat — he couldn’t find lethal injection drugs.
It had been three years since the state’s last execution, and Joe Allbaugh admitted at a news conference that he had called “shady individuals” from “all over the world — to the backstreets of the Indian subcontinent” — to get the necessary deadly cocktail.
But in describing his “mad hunt” to find the drugs, the former FEMA executive inadvertently revealed a crisis that has plagued US death row for years.
From basement pharmacies to expired execution drugs and agonizing deaths, an underground system quietly supports death rows across the country.
Huntsville Prison in Texas
Problems with America’s lethal injections stem primarily from a lack of willingness on the part of pharmacies to manufacture the drugs used in executions. Pfizer’s decision to discontinue use of its products in 2016 shut down the last remaining open-market source of the drugs.
Yet the executions have continued, drawing fire from the Texas Department of Corrections after the expiration date of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital was extended for years.
The state denies that the antiquated cocktail makes the procedure more painful, a claim disputed by lawyers representing prisoners who continue to be put to death with the drugs.
Fueled by a lack of pharmacies willing to produce the execution drug, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice decided to extend the expiration date of their stock.
Six convicted Texas inmates made headlines after filing a lawsuit against the authority last year, alleging that use of the drugs violated the U.S. Constitution’s statutes against cruel and unusual punishment.
But as the lawsuit moved through the courts, inmates who signed the case, including convicted murderers Wesley Ruiz, John Balentine, Gary Green, Arthur Brown Jr. and Robert Fratta, executed by the same authority they are suing.
But long before that, in 2010, it came to light that several states were purchasing their drugs from a one-man basement pharmacy called “Dream Pharma.”
When word got out that the drugs had been used by Arizona officials to execute convicted murderer Jeffrey Landrigan, the London factory claimed it had no idea the drugs would be used for that purpose.
Jeffrey Landrigan, pictured, was executed in Arizona more than a decade ago with lethal injection drugs allegedly purchased through a one-man basement lab in London
Five Texas death row inmates, including Arthur Brown Jr (left), Robert Fratta (center left), John Balentine (center right), and Gary Green (right), have been executed after joining a lawsuit against the safety of the lethal injection drugs being used. used to kill them
Oklahoma became the first state to execute a prisoner with the drug pentobarbital, despite its intended use as an anesthetic for veterinarians. Pictured: The stretcher in the execution chamber of Oklahoma State Penitentiary
Critics of the US death row system claim it violated the Constitution’s limits on ‘cruel and unusual punishment’
At the root of the “mad hunt” for the drugs is a manufacturing shortage, and the problem became so dire that in 2012 the Idaho Department of Corrections was accused of buying their drugs with a briefcase full of cash in a Walmart parking lot , according to the Idaho press.
According to a lawsuit, officials allegedly paid more than $10,000 after taking a chartered plane to Takoma, Washington to pick them up before failing to “properly store” the drugs before they were used in Richard Leavitt’s execution, just a month later in June.
The crisis has spread to states across the country, with Arkansas also facing a blockbuster in 2017 from medical supply company McKesson after it allegedly lied about its reasons for buying a cocktail of drugs.
Prior to a landmark killing spree that would have seen eight inmates executed in 11 days, Mckesson claimed the Arkansas Department of Corrections obtained its products illegally using “false pretenses, deceit and bad faith.”
Oklahoma instead turned to pentobarbital, the drug now at the center of the Texas death row scandal. In 2011, it became the first state to execute an inmate with the drug, despite its intended use as an anesthetic for veterinarians.
“The drugs used in executions are all life-saving drugs that were never designed or intended to end prisoners’ lives,” Blaire Andres, head of Death Penalty Projects at human rights group Reprieve, told DailyMail.com.
Executing states recognize that if people knew what really happens in the death chamber, support for the death penalty would plummet to unsustainable levels.
“So states are doing everything they can to hide the horrific reality of the death penalty.
“States have also increasingly resorted to covert and illegal tactics in pursuing executions, acquiring drugs from disreputable suppliers or insisting on the use of expired drugs.”
Wesley Ruiz was one of five Texas death row inmates put to death with the same lethal injection drugs they were charged with
Five Texas death row inmates, including John Balentine (left) and Gary Green (right), have been executed after joining a lawsuit against the safety of the lethal injection drugs used to kill them
Throughout this year, Texas has faced mounting pressure to explain why five inmates were executed despite a pending trial by the death row inmates themselves.
But the state’s ambivalence about security came to light five years earlier, when reports claimed the Department of Corrections turned to a series of small pharmacies to buy its pentobarbital supplies.
One of the small labs that developed the drug in Houston reportedly fell into violation of regulators on multiple occasions, reportedly shipping the drug along with drugs destined for hospitals and bathroom cabinets across the state.
According to documents obtained by Buzzfeed newsthe state chose to rely on the pharmacy despite warnings from regulators about shoddy and dangerous work.
And the fears came true in November 2016, when the lab reportedly sent a child to the emergency room after compounding the wrong drug cocktail before falsifying quality control documents.