DEA seizes Ga.'s supply of critical lethal injection drug, all executions called off

(CBS/AP) ATLANTA - All Georgia executions have been canceled after federal drug agents seized the state's supply of sodium thiopental, a sedative that makes up one-third of the deadly cocktail used in the lethal injections, after capital punishment critics and death-row inmates raised questions about the British exporter of the drug.

Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Chuvalo Truesdell wouldn't say exactly why Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental was taken Tuesday, just that "we had questions about how the drug was imported to the U.S."

Georgia's stockpile of the drug has been a target of death row inmates and capital punishment critics since corrections officials released documents this year showing the state obtained the drug from Link Pharmaceuticals, a firm purchased five years ago by Archimedes Pharma Limited.

Link Pharmaceuticals didn't exist in 2010, and its name hasn't been on labels since May 2007, according to a complaint filed by attorneys of death row inmate, Roy Willard Blankenship. Sodium thiopental typically has a shelf life of four years, meaning even the state's newest supply would expire in May of this year, the complaint stated. According to the complaint, after the drug expires it could make the lethal injection process extremely painful.

The drug was used in January to execute Emmanuel Hammond, a 45-year-old man convicted for the 1988 shotgun slaying of an Atlanta preschool teacher. His attorneys sought a delay to collect more information on how the state obtained the drug, claiming in court documents it came from a "fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England." They said the drug could have been counterfeit.

No more execution dates in Georgia have been scheduled and, chances are, none will be set before the issue is resolved.

Truesdell said he was unsure if other states' supplies of the scarce lethal drug were also being collected by the agency. Officials in Arkansas and California said authorities have not confiscated their supplies.

Defense attorneys welcomed the news.

"We commend the DEA for forcing the Department of Corrections to immediately cease using black market execution drugs," said William Montross, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights.

"It is an incredible relief that this federal agency has stepped up and intervened where the state and federal courts have turned a blind eye to the obvious problems with the procurement and use of these drugs."