The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
In January, Gov. Hobbs and Attorney General Mayes paused executions in Arizona. It is widely known that among the reasons for this much-needed pause was the fact that Arizona had botched at least three executions in 2022.
What many people may not know is that this action was also necessary to protect medical patients from losing access to many life-saving drugs, which was a potential outcome if Arizona continued to violate drugmakers’ business contracts by using their drugs to carry out executions even when that was contractually prohibited. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio paused executions several years ago for very similar reasons.
There are two primary obstacles Arizona faces in trying to acquire lethal injection drugs. The first is that virtually no pharmaceutical company wants its drugs used to carry out executions. The pharmaceutical companies have put in place strict contractual agreements that expressly forbid their drugs from being used to intentionally kill prisoners. Pharmaceutical companies have even sued states for violating these policies and threatened to withhold the sale of these drugs or stop manufacturing them altogether for legitimate medical purposes.
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Former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon asked his state’s Department of Corrections to stop using the drug propofol in executions because pharmaceutical companies warned that continued usage could result in shortages for the patients and the public.
States have tried to circumvent this issue by using compounding pharmacies, but under Arizona law, it is illegal for compounding pharmacies to make the necessary drugs for lethal injection without a valid medical prescription. It is illegal for a medical provider to write a prescription for an execution drug because the law requires prescriptions to be for medicinal or therapeutic purposes. Asking a compounding pharmacy to dispense the drug without a prescription is a class 4 felony in Arizona, and asking a medical professional to write a fraudulent prescription would also be both illegal and unethical.
If Arizona were to move ahead with trying to obtain controlled substances in secret and in violation of the law, these actions could contaminate our medical supply chain and create risks to patients and the public.
Even if the state were somehow able to obtain drugs legally, there are other worrisome issues. Arizona may have used compounded pentobarbital in 2022 that was past the beyond-use date, which would violate the execution protocol and present a substantial risk of serious harm.
It is also concerning that states are increasingly relying on inadequately trained personnel to engage in complicated medical procedures, such as cut-downs, in order to carry out executions, resulting in gruesome affairs that are traumatic for everyone. It is deeply unfair to ask any state employee to take part in high-stakes procedures for which they have not received adequate training.
As a doctor and pediatrician, I, like other medical professionals, have taken an oath to do no harm. It is why nearly every major medical association has taken a position against participating in executions, and why there is a dearth of trained medical staff willing to participate in the taking of a life.
Also, on a personal level, I find the vast amounts of money that we spend on the death penalty, millions in Arizona each year, to be wasteful when we have so many pressing needs. Spending this money to kill prisoners, who will spend their entire lives behind bars, instead of using it to improve mental health services, fund alcohol and drug treatment, and prevent child abuse is a gross misuse of public funds and a missed opportunity to invest in crime prevention.
I hope the current pause on executions prompts more discussion about our priorities, and I applaud the governor and attorney general for taking the first step. The second step should be supporting SB1475, which would abolish our death penalty, allowing Arizona to join the 23 other states which have already done so.
Dr. David Spence is a pediatrician from Flagstaff and a board member of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona, a non-profit organization that provides public education about the death penalty and why it needs to be repealed.