USA - South Carolina. A Senate subcommittee advances bill to shield execution-drug sellers

A Senate subcommittee advances bill to shield execution-drug sellers. The identities of pharmaceutical companies that supply execution drugs to South Carolina would become secret under SB 553 unanimously approved today by a Senate subcommittee. The legislation would add drug companies to the state’s execution team and require that their identities be kept secret, in the hope that providers will resume selling execution drugs to the state. The proposal would also exempt the companies from state health and purchasing rules. South Carolina has run out of one of its three lethal injection drugs, the anesthetic pentobarbital, and cannot find anyone willing to sell more. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling has said that if their names were shielded from the public, as the names of individuals involved in carrying out executions already are, pharmaceutical companies might be willing to start selling the drugs again. No one spoke in opposition to the bill, which will be considered by the full Senate Corrections and Penology Committee later this week.