British drug company acts to stop its products being used in US executions

originally by: The Guardian
published: 15 May 2013

A drug manufacturer based in Britain has vowed to add new restrictions to sales of its products in the US after it was revealed that it sold a batch of barbiturate to the Arkansas department of corrections, which intended to use it in executions.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals has promised to put in place “concrete steps to restrict the supply of its products for unintended uses” following the disclosure by the legal action charity Reprieve that a wholly owned subsidiary in the US had sold injectable phenobarbital to the Arkansas prison service which was seeking to devise a new way of killing its death-row inmates.

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23 March 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Death row mum cleared of killing son after 22 years in jail

all credits: The Mirror
published: 15 March 2013

A mum who spent 22 years on death row has had her conviction overturned. A US appeal court ruled today that Debra Jean Milke, 48, was wrongly found guilty of murdering her four-year-old son Christopher.

They say police failed to reveal that a detective who gave key evidence against her had a history of lying under oath.

German-born Milke had been given a date for her execution by lethal injection. She would have been the first woman executed in Arizona since 1930.

12 December 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Endgame for death penalty in California

originally by: SFGate
published: 8 Dec 2012

The election-night headlines didn’t seem cheerful for those dedicated to ending capital punishment in California. Proposition 34, the audacious attempt to use ballot initiatives to abolish the death penalty, was defeated. The narrowness of the final vote (52-48 percent) was some consolation, but this was in part the result of the lack of an energetic campaign by the state’s district attorneys.

And isn’t it folk wisdom that close calls only count in horseshoes? Don’t the anti-death-penalty partisans belong in the ballot initiative loser’s bracket for 2012 along with the food labelers and union busters?