Pharmacy won’t sell drug for Missouri execution
Inmate contends drug will cause ‘inhumane pain’
OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma pharmacy has agreed not to provide Missouri with a made-to-order drug for an inmate’s execution scheduled for later this month, according to court documents filed Monday.
According to the documents, The Apothecary Shoppe, of Tulsa, will not prepare or provide pentobarbital or any other drug for use in Michael Taylor’s execution. The documents ask a judge to dismiss the case that Taylor’s lawyers had filed against the pharmacy seeking to stop it from providing the execution drug.
Taylor’s attorney, Matt Hellman, said that as part of the deal, the pharmacy acknowledged it has not already provided any such drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for the execution, which is scheduled for Feb. 26.
The Missouri Department of Corrections and the attorney general’s office did not immediately return calls Monday night seeking comment about the agreement or the status of Taylor’s execution.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon indicated last week that the state has drugs to carry out Taylor’s execution. Nixon, speaking at a news conference Thursday, did not directly answer “yes” or “no” when asked about availability of the execution drug but said, “In order to complete that ultimate responsibility, that’s necessary. The Department of Corrections is prepared to carry out that execution.”
Taylor pleaded guilty to abducting, raping and stabbing to death a 15-year-old Kansas City girl in 1989.
The Apothecary Shoppe has not acknowledged that it supplies a compounded version of pentobarbital to Missouri for use in lethal injections, as Taylor said, and said it can’t because of a Missouri law requiring the identities of those on the state’s execution team to be kept confidential.
In his lawsuit, Taylor alleged that Missouri turned to The Apothecary Shoppe to supply compounded pentobarbital because the only licensed manufacturer of the drug refuses to provide it for lethal injections.
Taylor contends that several recent executions in which compounded pentobarbital was used showed it would likely cause him “severe, unnecessary, lingering and ultimately inhumane pain.”