ST. LOUIS – Despite a shortage of lethal-injection drugs, two of the nation’s most active death-penalty states have quietly carried on with executions by turning to pentobarbital, a powerful sedative that generally puts inmates to death swiftly and without complications.
Missouri and Texas have avoided the prolonged executions seen in other states where authorities are struggling to find a reliable chemical combination.
“There is a better drug, and that better drug is pentobarbital,” said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.
Lethal injection is in the spotlight after executions went awry in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, which all use midazolam, a drug that is more commonly given to help patients relax before surgery. In executions, it is part of a two- or three-drug lethal injection.
Texas and Missouri instead administer a single large dose of pentobarbital, which is often used to treat convulsions and seizures and to euthanize animals.
Since 2011, more than five dozen executions have been performed solely with pentobarbital, according to records kept by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, an advocacy group that opposes the death penalty. In most cases, inmates showed no obvious signs of suffering.
Not all, though.
In 2012, South Dakota used pentobarbital to execute Eric Robert, who was convicted of killing a prison guard. As the drug was administered, Robert appeared to clear his throat and gasped heavily, then snorted for about 30 seconds. His eyes remained opened and his skin initially turned pale, then a purplish hue.
Pentobarbital also was the first of three drugs used to execute Michael Wilson in January in Oklahoma. His final words were, “I feel my whole body burning.”
Missouri changed to pentobarbital late last year and has since performed eight executions during which inmates showed no obvious signs of distress.
Scott Holste, spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, said the drug has proved dependable for conducting executions “in an efficient, effective and humane manner.”
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is equally confident in its use of pentobarbital, which it adopted in 2012. Since then, the drug has been used in 33 executions without complication, agency spokesman Jason Clark said.
Earlier this year, Georgia also used pentobarbital alone to kill a condemned inmate.
Missouri and Texas both plan two executions during the next six weeks, starting with inmate Michael Worthington, who is scheduled to die Wednesday in Missouri. Worthington’s execution would be the first since Joseph Rudolph Wood was put to death last month in Arizona. Wood gasped more than 600 times while he lay on the table and took nearly two hours to die.
Most lethal injections kill in a fraction of that time, often within 10 or 15 minutes.
