A Nevada judge halted an execution scheduled for 8pm local time on Wednesday after the pharmaceutical company Alvogen filed suit alleging the state illegally obtained its sedative midazolam—which has been part of multiple previous botched executions in other states and was one of three drugs Nevada planned to include in a cocktail that’s never been used for lethal injection in the United States.
Alvogen’s complaint, filed Tuesday, pointed out that “past attempts by other states to use the medicine in lethal injections have been extremely controversial, and have led to widespread concern that prisoners have been exposed to cruel and unusual treatment.” The company alleged Nevada purchased the drug “by subterfuge with the undisclosed and improper intent to use it for the upcoming execution in complete disregard of plaintiff’s rights.”
While Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith claimed the company’s “whole action is just PR damage control” and reportedly argued that Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez had “no authority to stay the execution,” the judge issued a temporary restraining order that bars the state from using midazolam and set another hearing for September 10, effectively delaying the execution of 47-year-old Scott Raymond Dozier.
The condemned man was sentenced to death in 2007 for a first-degree murder conviction in Nevada following a previous second-degree murder conviction in Arizona. Although Dozier waived his appeals in 2016 and told reporters he wishes to be put to death rather than held in prison, human rights advocates have not wavered in opposing plans for his execution.
Noting that “eyewitness accounts of recent executions using midazolam are full of grizzly details,” ACLU Nevada’s legal director Amy Rose wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “It is deeply troubling that Nevada government officials are barreling ahead with execution when the chances of torturing Dozier are so high.”
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