All State Executions Canceled

ATLANTA – All Georgia executions are off after federal drug
agents seized the state’s supply of a sedative used in lethal
injections that has been challenged by capital punishment critics
and death-row inmates, including a man recently executed who called
the British exporter of the drug a “fly-by-night supplier.”

Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Chuvalo Truesdell
wouldn’t say exactly why Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental was
taken Tuesday, just that they had questions about it was imported
to the U.S. The sedative is part of a three-drug cocktail used in
executions that has been in short supply since the sole U.S.
manufacturer stopped making it.

No more execution dates in Georgia have been scheduled and it’s
unlikely any will be set before the issue is resolved.