USA - Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania doesn't have lethal injection drugs

Pennsylvania execution delayed because the state doesn't have lethal injection drugs. An execution scheduled for 10 days from now in Pennsylvania has been called off because the state doesn't have the drugs it needs to carry out the lethal injection, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced today. But the reprieve for Hubert L. Michael Jr., who was convicted of the 1993 kidnapping and murder of a teenage girl, is only meant to be temporary, Corbett said. Corbett said in a statement that he is "committed to carrying out the sentence" for Michael and intends to set a new execution date once the state gets the execution drugs. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections confirmed Friday that it does not have the drugs necessary to carry out the execution, but a spokeswoman declined to provide information regarding why. This comes amid an ongoing shortage of lethal injection drugs that has left states with capital punishment scrambling to obtain them, even as some states have contemplated reviving older execution methods, such as like firing squads or gas chambers. Corbett signed the death warrant for Michael in July, setting the execution date for Sept. 22. The execution was temporarily stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit last month as it weighs a petition for the full court to hear Michael's case. But if the stay is lifted, the Department of Corrections - which is responsible for carrying out death sentences, and has to do so on dates established by the governor - would then be obligated to execute Michael by lethal injection. "We cannot do so because we do not have the drugs," Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said in an e-mail. "We continue to work to acquire the drugs in accordance with the law." When asked for additional details regarding why the department did not have the necessary drugs or when it expected to get them, McNaughton said that she could not discuss any details regarding how the drugs are obtained. Michael was convicted of abducting and shooting 16-year-old Trista Eng in York County. He was sentenced to death in 1995. The state has 184 people on death row and has carried out 3 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976; it has not executed anyone since 1999.