Deborah Denno comments to the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the backlash from a pharmaceutical company which forced Ohio to change the drug it will use to lethally inject death row inmates.
Fordham Law Professor Deborah W. Denno said that because Oklahoma uses three drugs, no one really knows how pentobarbital will work until Ohio becomes the first state to use it as a solo agent.
“It is pretty much going to be an experiment because they don’t know what is going to happen,” Denno said. “Oklahoma will say they have not had a problem, but they are also using these other two drugs with pentobarbital. This drug might act differently when you only use this drug alone.”
Denno also questions where Ohio will purchase its supply of the drug. She said a Denmark drug maker that exports pentobarbital to the United States has already expressed concern the drug will be used for executions.
“It may not be used in Ohio to euthanize animals but it is used to euthanize animals elsewhere,” Denno said. “I think what they are trying to do is distinguish the execution of humans from the euthanasia of animals.”
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