After an Oklahoma execution was halted after the discovery that a drug maker shipped the wrong lethal injection drug, the Oklahoma Department of Correctionscalled for more control over the ability to store the drugs needed for the state's lethal injection cocktail.
Now, with the signing of Senate Bill 884, Governor Mary Fallin is allowing state prisons to store lethal injection drugs.
Prior to the passing of SB 884, only physicians and hospitals in Oklahoma were allowed to obtain the state and federal licenses needed to store controlleddrugs. Because the state penitentiary is not a hospital, the Department of Corrections had to rely on the licenses of prison doctors for storing thedrugs necessary at the prison, including prescription medications for prisoners with psychiatric conditions.
However, high turnover rates among physicians has made the storage of drugs difficult at the prison. The issue came to a head in September, when the statewas scheduled to execute death row inmate Richard Eugene Glossip, a convicted murderer whose conviction and death sentence have been called into question.Celebrities including Susan Sarandon, George Takei, Barry Switzer, and even Pope Francis have asked Governor Fallin to commute Glossip's sentence.
However, Glossip's execution was scheduled to proceed until the eleventh hour, when prison officials discovered that one of the three lethal injectiondrugs they received for the execution was the wrong drug. The state is only authorized to utilize the specific drugs listed in Oklahoma law.
The Department of Corrections says the drug maker, who stored the drug, failed to notify them that it has sent the wrong drug, whether through error orsubstitution. The DOC asserts that if the prison had the ability to obtain a license to store controlled drugs, the error would never have been made--orat the very least, it would have been discovered and rectified long before an execution was set to take place.
Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, who co-authored the bill, says the new law will be beneficial "[s]o we won't be caught with this issue of ordering the drugthe night before because what's in protocol isn't available and they would have to substitute something. They would have the medication on hand."
Deathpenalty critics say this the new law may help some, but that the issue it addresses is a symptom of a crumbling and unethical method of punishmentin the criminal justice system.
