USA - Alabama. Illegal Execution Drugs Seized by the DEA

Alabama's Illegal Execution Drugs Seized by the DEA. 2 days after EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, Alabama prisons spokesman Brian Corbett this afternoon admitted that the state's supply of sodium thiopental obtained from Tennessee has been seized by the DEA and will not be available for scheduled executions in May and June. The State is now asserting that it will change the execution drugs and protocol without previously disclosing that information to the Alabama Supreme Court who scheduled executions for condemned prisoners several weeks after the drugs had been seized. EJI contends that the State is not being forthright or transparent about how it plans to carry out these executions and that the Department of Corrections should not be allowed to make up procedures for carrying out executions without accountability or transparency and in a manner that suggests some deception. An attorney for Jason Oric Williams said he will ask the courts to stop Williams' May 19 execution because the state is changing the drug. "The state should not be able to make up on the fly how it is going to carry out executions," Bryan Stevenson said. He claims pentobarbital works differently from sodium thiopental.