22 August 2017 :

Nevada plan to use untried execution drugs draws criticism. Nevada, which does not currently have an execution protocol in place, announced that it had obtained drugs to execute Scott Dozier, using a three-drug formula that no state has ever tried before. Dozier—who has waived his appeal rights and volunteered to be executed—is scheduled to die on November 14. To execute Dozier, Nevada has indicated that it will use an untried combination of diazepam (Valium), fentanyl (a synthetic opioid), and cisatracurium (a muscle paralytic). All but one of the prisoners executed in Nevada since 1977 were found to have waived their appeals; Dozier would be the state's 12th death-row prisoner to volunteer to be executed. Nevada recently spent nearly $900,000 on building a new execution chamber. Prison administrators didn't immediately respond to questions including who will have the final say about what drugs are used, how the three medications were obtained, what order they would be administered and who will be in the Ely State Prison death chamber for Dozier's execution, which would be the 1st in the state in 11 years. ACLU officials criticized Nevada lawmakers for leaving to prison officials decisions about how executions are carried out, beyond the requirement that they be by lethal injection. Dozier, 46, was convicted of 2 murders in 2002, in Phoenix and Las Vegas. He was sentenced to death in 2007. Dozier isn't appealing his sentence and told a state court judge in Las Vegas on Thursday he wants his sentence carried out, and that he isn't concerned about pain and suffering. His attorney, Thomas Ericsson, has been joined by federal public defenders in a request this week for Clark County District Court Judge Jennifer Togliatti to require prisons officials to answer more than 20 questions about the Nevada execution process, drug dosages and the qualifications and training of execution team members. The judge is due next Thursday to schedule hearings on those issues.