Deborah Denno comments to First Coast News about the execution of William Happ, the seventh condemned inmate in 2013, the most for a single year for the state of Florida in about 30 years.
Deborah Denno is a leading expert on lethal injection and a law professor at Fordham University.
Denno told First Coast News in a phone interview that Florida could be opening itself up to legal challenges with the new drug.
“Florida is taking a huge risk,” she said.
Denno said midazolam hydrochloride has also never been used for executions in any other state in history, but that it is FDA-approved.
Denno added that Florida is in the minority of states that are still using an injection cocktail.
“Eleven states allow for the use of one drug,” she said, adding that she believes this process is more humane because it lacks a paralytic agent.
Read the entire First Coast News story.
