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Execution Room in Texas: Controversial Methods
Photo: Gregory Smith / Corbis via Getty Images
The convicted murderer Zane Floyd has been in prison in the United States for more than 20 years, awaiting execution.
In July, the verdict was due to be carried out in the state of Nevada and Floyd died from lethal injection.
But the appointment was postponed after a judge ruled that the method of execution needed further investigation.
A new date can probably no longer be set this year.
Now enforcement institutions seem to be running out of time.
Because the expiry date of one of the chemicals with which the fourfold murderer is to be killed only runs until the end of February - after that, the agent may no longer be used.
A public prosecutor drew attention to this on Friday at a meeting with a judge.
Specifically, it is about an anesthetic containing ketamine, which belongs to the cocktail that is to be used in executions with lethal injection in Nevada.
It expires on February 28th.
According to Randall Gilmer, Nevada attorney general, there is currently no reasonable assumption that they will be able to raise additional funds.
It remains to be seen how the case will develop.
Zane Floyd's lawyers had challenged the proposed execution. Rulings are pending in several courts, such as the Nevada Supreme Court, the Las Vegas state court and a US appeals court in San Francisco. Floyd's lawyers wanted in April that the detainee should be executed by firing squad rather than lethal injection, as the process was cruel. In addition, Nevada has no experience with the method that is to be used. Attorney General Gilmer admits that too. We are dealing with a completely new protocol.
At least at the federal level, no death sentences are to be carried out in the USA until further notice, as former President Donald Trump had managed to achieve again after years. In addition, the Justice Department had ordered the Trump administration to review changes to execution guidelines, including those on lethal injection chemicals.
Floyd would be the first inmate to be executed in Nevada in 15 years.
His execution is expected to take place in a prison in the small town of Ely.
A new $ 860,000 execution room was built there in 2016, but has never been used.
The Nevada execution protocol provides for the use of ketamine as one of three or four remedies.
The pain reliever fentanyl and potassium chloride should also be used, as well as possibly the muscle paralyzing drug cisatracurium.
Dispute with pharmaceutical companies
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Convicted Murderer Floyd: Four people shot dead
Photo: AP
46-year-old Floyd was sentenced to death for killing four people with a shotgun and seriously injuring another person in an attack on a supermarket in Las Vegas in 1999.
After his arrest, he confessed to the murders and reportedly said he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone.
In the USA, executions with lethal injection have been discussed for a long time.
The authorities repeatedly had difficulties in obtaining the appropriate funds.
In May 2016, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that it would cease sales for this purpose - as the last of 25 companies whose substances are used as poisons for the death penalty in the USA.
The manufacturers of the ketamine, which is said to be used in Nevada, also want to take legal action against the state if the drug is used in an execution.
The company Hikma Pharmaceuticals has asked Nevada to return 50 vials of the drug purchased for this purpose.
The manufacturer won a similar lawsuit in 2018 when the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl was about to be used in another execution.
joe / AP