
A controversial sedative drug used in several botched executions will no longer be used by the Arizona Department of Corrections.
The decision to prohibit the use of the sedative midazolam, or related products, now leaves Arizona without an available method to perform executions.
The settlement, filed late Monday, comes after seven death row inmates in Arizona brought the suit following the botched lethal injection execution of Joseph Wood in 2014.
Wood gasped and heaved for nearly two hours after the drug cocktail — a combination of midazolam and hydromorphone — was injected. The process should have taken roughly 10 minutes, according to experts.
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Arizona halted executions pending the Wood case and a full review of its death penalty procedures. Other states have used midazolam as part of its lethal injection cocktail, leading to prolonged executions. Ronald Smith, Jr. reportedly heaved, coughed and clenched his fists for 13 minutes before being declared dead during his early-December execution in Alabama. Midazolam was one of three drugs used in his lethal injection. The Arizona Department of Corrections “will never again use midazolam, or any other benzodiazepine, as part of a drug protocol in a lethal injection execution,” a settlement filed late Monday in a federal court in Phoenix reads. A federal public defender representing the Arizona inmates called the state’s decision a “sensible one.” “Scientific evidence shows that this class of drugs is not an appropriate drug for use in lethal injection executions. Time after time, midazolam has failed to keep condemned prisoners adequately anesthetized and to bring about a quick, humane death. The bungled execution of Ron Smith in Alabama on December 8 is just the latest example,” Dale Baich said in a statement.
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There are currently 120 inmates in Arizona’s death row. Midazolam has also been used in executions in Ohio and Oklahoma.