Busted: Texas caught illegally dispensing lethal injection drugs under the name of a hospital that closed 30 years ago

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has today been reported to the US Attorney General Eric Holder for illegally purchasing and dispensing lethal injection drugs under the name of a hospital that closed in 1983.

In a letter to Holder and to the Texas Department of Safety, lawyers for death row prisoner Cleve Foster describe how the state's prison agency has been purchasing controlled substances – including drugs used for lethal injections – under a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registration certificate assigned to Huntsville Unit Hospital, which has not existed for 30 years. "[A]s a result, we believe that TDCJ is unlawfully in possession of and unlawfully dispensing controlled substances," the lawyers write.

Under US drug laws, DEA registration numbers must be renewed every three years. Yet Foster's legal team, Maurie Levin and Sandra Babcock, have discovered that the TDCJ “has failed to advise the DEA for the past twenty-eight years of the fact that the Huntsville Unit Hospital no longer exists," or to admit that what actually exists at that location is a prison unit with a warden "purchasing and dispensing controlled substances".

The lawyers further report that Texas’s drugs are not kept at a pharmacy or by a DEA-registered handler: "At no point is an appropriately licensed or authorized practitioner involved in the dispensing process, and at no point is a prescription written to transfer the controlled substances to a member of the execution team”.
Levin and Babcock have asked Attorney General Holder to direct the DEA to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation, noting "the potential for abuse is rampant." If violations are found, they request the immediate revocation of agency registration and seizure of the ill-obtained drugs. Any such action would disrupt Texas’s busy execution schedule; seven executions are slated for August, with Cleve Foster due to die on April 5.

Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith said: 

“Every day, the US capital punishment system looks more ridiculous. If the Texas Department of Criminal Justice can’t even manage to obey the law, why on earth should they be granted the extraordinary power to kill prisoners?”

For more information please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk / 020 7427 1099 / 07931592674.
Notes for Editors:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.
Reprieve has represented, and continues to represent, a large number of prisoners who have been rendered and abused around the world, and is conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’
Reprieve is a charitable company limited by guarantee; Registered Charity No. 1114900 Registered Company No. 5777831 (England) Registered Office 2-6 Cannon Street London EC4M 6YH; Chair: Lord Ken Macdonald QC; Patrons: Alan Bennett, Julie Christie, Martha Lane Fox, Gordon Roddick, Jon Snow, Marina Warner, Vivienne Westwood

Downloads

• 2011_03_30 Texas illegal drugs - Letter to DPS
• 2011_03_30 Texas illegal drugs - Letter to Hon Eric Holder.pdf

Hospira To Stop Manufacturing Sodium Thiopental, the First Drug in the Three Drug Lethal Injection Protocols

According to the Associated Press, Hospira the sole US manufacturer of a key drug used in lethal injections will cease production because authorities in Italy, where the drug was to be made, wanted a guarantee that it wouldn't be used to put inmates to death. Here is Hospira's Statement Regarding Pentothal (sodium thiopental) market exit:

LAKE FOREST, ILL., Jan. 21, 2011 -- Hospira announced today it will exit the sodium thiopental market and no longer attempt to resume production of its product, Pentothal.

 

Hospira had intended to produce Pentothal at its Italian plant.  In the last month, we've had ongoing dialogue with the Italian authorities concerning the use of Pentothal in capital punishment procedures in the United States -- a use Hospira has never condoned.  Italy's intent is that we control the product all the way to the ultimate end user to prevent use in capital punishment.  These discussions and internal deliberation, as well as conversations with wholesalers -- the prmary distributors of the product to customers -- led us to believe we could not prevent the drug from being diverted to departments of corrections for use in capital punishment procedures.

 

Based on this understanding, we cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment.  Exposing our employees or facilities to liability is not a risk we are prepared to take.

 

Given the issues surrounding the product, including the government's requirements and challenges bringing the drug back to the market, Hospira has decided to exit the market.  We regret that issues outside of our control forced Hospira's decision to exit the market, and that our many hospital customers who use the drug for its well-established medical benefits will not be able to obtain the product from Hospira.

The National Catholic Weekly has published an article which chronicles how Italian Catholics pulled the plug on US executions.

... But what's missing from today's reports is that behind the Italian Parliament's insistence is a lay Catholic movement dedicated -- among many other things - to the eradication of the death penalty around the world. The Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio had been engaged in discussions with Hospira's Italian subsidiary, Hospira SL, which led to meetings with the Foreign Affairs minister, Franco Frattini, and the Ministry of Health. The result of those meetings was an agreement that the production of the drug in Italy would have to be for strictly therapeutic purposes. The company has long deplored its use in executions, and said it regretted the need to cease production.

Hospira's choice to end production because it couldn't give that guarantee was described as "highly responsible" by Sant'Egidio's spokesman, Mario Marazziti, who said: "It highlights the point that therapeutic drugs and doctors should never be used to bring about death".
Sidium thiopental is already in short supply after the British government last November also banned the UK manufacture of the drug following a campaign by the British NGO Reprieve. According to the Wall Street Journal's law blog, Hospira's decision means the death penalty system in the US "is potentially thrown into turmoil". States can attempt to use another anaesthetic instead -- Oklahoma, for example, has switched to a drug used to euthanise cats and dogs -- but it involves seeking clearance from the courts, which is likely to delay executions.
There is a lesson here about globalization. It's not just the market that's gone global. It's civil society pressure, too.

Save Linda Carty

British grandmother Linda Carty was wrongfully sentenced to death by a Texan court and is now dangerously close to execution. Please watch this video about her disastrous case - and find out how you can help save her life.

How to save Linda Carty

1. Please sign this petition NOW
2. Follow Linda Carty's case on Facebook, Twitter or our Save Linda Petition
3. Sign up for updates on Linda's case by mailing info@reprieve.org.uk
4. Donate to our Urgent Appeal for Linda Carty

Who is Linda Carty?

After a catastrophically flawed trial, Linda Carty was sentenced to death in February 2002 and faces execution within months. She desperately needs your help.

• Watch a video featuring Linda, her family and lawyers explaining what went wrong in her case
• Listen to Linda's appeal to the British people
• Watch Reprieve's Clare Algar talk about Linda's case on Sky
• Look back at Linda's case history

Why is Linda Carty on death row?

Linda would certainly not be on death row today if she had had a decent defence lawyer at trial. Her story is a damning indictment of the Texas justice system, and exposes the perils of being poor and vulnerable in the USA.

Linda was born on 5 October 1958 on the Caribbean island of St Kitts to Anguillan parents and holds a UK dependent territory passport. She worked as a primary school teacher in St Kitts until she was 23, when she moved to the US to study.

After disastrous failures by her court-appointed lawyer, Linda was convicted of taking part in the murder of 25 year-old Joana Rodriguez.

The crime took place on 16 May 2001, when three men broke into the apartment of Rodriguez and her partner Raymundo Cabrera, demanding drugs and cash. They abducted Rodriguez and her four-day-old son, Ray, who was later found unharmed in a car, while Rodriguez had suffocated.

The prosecution’s rather implausible theory was that Linda was afraid of losing her common-law husband and thought that if she had another baby he would stay. Unable to get pregnant, they allege she had hired three men to kidnap Rodriguez and that she planned to steal the child - a baby of a different race to Linda.

Linda's court-appointed lawyer was Jerry Guerinot, whose incompetence has already led to twenty of his clients ending up on death row, more than any other defence lawyer in the US. His approach to her case was at best, slapdash, at worst, wilfully inept.

Guerinot's catalogue of serious failings in Linda's case includes: failure to meet Linda until immediately before the trial, failure to inform Linda or her husband of their rights; failure to spot obvious flaws and inconsistencies in the prosecution case; failure to interview witnesses; and failure to investigate key mitigating evidence.

After her conviction, investigators from Reprieve visited St Kitts and learnt that Linda was still remembered as a passionate teacher who frequently held extra classes for children with special needs. She also taught at Sunday school, sang in a national youth choir and led a volunteer social-work group.

This information would have enabled Guerinot to present her to the jurors as a dedicated teacher and community leader – factors that might well have induced them to vote to spare her life. But although Guerinot applied to the court for funds to go to St Kitts before Linda’s trial, neither he nor his staff made the trip.

By the time the Carty family emigrated to the US in 1982, Linda had a daughter Jovelle, then two (born 10 September 1979). Shortly after Jovelle was born, Jovelle’s father emigrated to New York, leaving Linda to care for the child alone. A year after Linda moved to Houston her cousin Harriet died suddenly. Linda and Harriet were very close and Linda was devastated.

During the 80s, Linda had begun to work as a confidential informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), befriending suspected traffickers in order to get information and sometimes to make test purchases of drugs. Linda has always asserted her innocence, and believes that she was framed because of her work with the DEA.

In 1988 Linda was raped in a University of Houston car park. The rape resulted in a pregnancy and Linda gave birth to a baby girl (born 23 June 1989) who was given up for adoption. Linda felt a deep sense of shame and concealed the rape and the pregnancy from her family. Two months prior to giving birth, Linda’s beloved father died, Linda was distraught. Later, she found herself in an abusive relationship and was a victim of domestic violence.

Linda is now incarcerated at Mountain View Unit, one of ten women on death row in Texas.

Will Linda be killed?

Linda's case is now before the Supreme Court; this is the last chance for the legal system to save her life. The Supreme Court hears only a tiny number of cases per year.

It is time to get very worried about Linda. She needs all the support she can get.

What else can I do?

After signing the petition and sending it to your friends, you can write a letter of support to Linda at: Linda Carty, # 999406, Mountainview Unit, 2305 Ransom Rd, Gatesville, Texas 76528, USA. Letters must include a return address.

Downloads

• 2010_01_27 Linda Carty Supreme Court Petition appendices
• Linda Carty cut out on the Plinth
• Linda Carty: Cartoon by Lewis Peake
• Linda Carty: Case Summary
• Linda Carty: Fifth Circuit appeal arguments
• Linda Carty: photo standing on porch
• Linda Carty: portrait by Claire Phillips
• Linda Carty: UK government's amicus brief
• Listen to Linda Carty's Speech from Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth