House committee calls on DOJ for answers about execution drug

Two House Democrats on the Oversight Committee are asking the Department of Justice whether it plans to resume federal executions and if it plans to obtain a controversial lethal injection drug.

Lawmakers requested the administration provide information by Dec. 22 about potential plans to obtain pentobarbital sodium for lethal injection and provide an update on the department’s review of the Trump administration’s federal death penalty practices, according to a letter signed by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who chairs the subcommittee on on civil rights and civil liberties, and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who is also a member of the panel.

The letter was prompted in part by the reinstatement of the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose death sentence was overturned by an appeals court last year, “raising new questions about its plans to resume federal executions.” The Biden administration’s Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court in June to reinstate Tsarnaev’s death sentence.

In light of that development and the Trump administration’s reinstatement of federal execution in the last few months of that administration, Raskin and Pressley said they were “concerned” that the Justice Department “may renew its efforts to obtain pentobarbital from non-FDA-regulated pharmacies for use in future federal executions.”

The drug in question, pentobarbital, has been said to cause “extreme pain” in inmates, according to The Associated Press. A central nervous system depressant, it can lead to the heart stopping when it is administered in higher quantities, the news outlet notes.

“Before the federal single-drug protocol was adopted, there were multiple reports of states using pentobarbital in executions on inmates, causing them to scream of burning pain and writhe in agony while strapped to gurneys,” the lawmakers said in their letter.

The AP reported that executions witnessed by it and other media outlets were in contradiction to prison official accounts that the administration of the drug led to inmates “falling asleep” and instead showed inmates shook and shuddered as the pentobarbital took effect.

The Hill has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.