Deborah Denno was quoted in an Associated Press article about the state of Nevada using drugs as a form of capital punishment.
In an election year, few Nevada politicians are talking about possible changes to keep the death penalty viable while the state faces a court battle that’s expected to be lengthy.
“It will be quite a while before Scott Dozier is going to face an execution day,” said Deborah Denno, an expert in capital punishment law at Fordham University in New York.
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Nevada could try to obtain a compounded drug from Texas, like Virginia did in 2015 before passing a law allowing prisons to use a secret compounding pharmacy.
But the made-to-order drugs can be expensive, and “Nevada may not want to make that kind of investment,” Denno said.
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Nevada law calls for capital punishment by lethal injection, so state officials would have to approve changes — and perhaps build new facilities — to switch to a different method.
It might consider joining Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma in a yet-to-be-employed method using nitrogen gas, Denno said. It asphyxiates a person in an airtight chamber through a lack of oxygen.
The news was also published in The Kansas City Star, San Antonio Express-News, and The News Courier.
