USA - Connecticut. Connecticut without execution drugs.

Connecticut without execution drugs. Connecticut has 11 inmates on death row yet no access to the lethal injection drugs the state would use to perform those executions, a problem lawyers say could add years to litigation over those sentences. Karen Martucci, the acting director of external affairs for the Department of Correction, acknowledged in an email to The Associated Press that Connecticut has no stock of the 3 execution drugs mandated for use by the department. State directives require the use of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. "There's no state that I know of that currently has access to these drugs," said Michael P. Lawlor, the state's undersecretary of criminal justice policy. Asked what Connecticut would do if it were required to carry out an execution, Lawlor said he did not know. He said the state is closely watching litigation in other states. "There is no execution imminent in Connecticut, so we can wait and see," he said. Any further legislative change in Connecticut, which already has abolished the death penalty going forward in April 2012, would likely prompt a new round of legal challenges, attorneys said.