Death takes a holiday

[littlelolligagged]

The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution Tuesday of a death row inmate whose lawyers filed a last-minute appeal questioning the legality of using execution drugs that they said came from a company operating out of a London driving school.

The order from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delays the execution of inmate Emmanuel Hammond until the top court can address the concerns raised by his defense team. Hammond, 45, was convicted of the 1988 shotgun killing of preschool teacher Jule Love, who was abducted in north Atlanta after her car ran out of gas.

Defense lawyers had filed appeals claiming the conviction should be reversed because Hammond's trial lawyer made mistakes that led to his 1990 murder conviction. And his lawyers have claimed that they need more time to investigate the state's supply of a lethal injection drug amid a nationwide shortage.

The stay from the U.S. Supreme Court came after Georgia's top court refused to intervene.

Through it all, prosecutors have urged judges to uphold the conviction of the man nicknamed "Demon."

The court records lay out Love's killing in stark terms. The petite instructor was returning home from a "career chat" meeting with friends in north Atlanta when her car ran out of gas. As she walked down the road, a maroon Cutlass sedan carrying Hammond, his girlfriend Janice Weldon and his 18-year-old cousin Maurice Porter offered help.

She declined, telling the group she lived nearby. Before they drove away, someone in the car realized Love had tricked them, and Hammond jumped out with a sawed-off shotgun and threw Love into the car.

They drove her to an elementary school in a rundown neighborhood, where Porter rifled through her purse and found a little cash and ATM cards. At gunpoint, Hammond forced Love to reveal her pin number. But she was so nervous she gave him the wrong number.

Hammond sent Porter and Weldon to withdraw money from her account. When Weldon realized they would be returning empty handed, she told Porter: "Demon going to be mad," according to court records.

She was right. Hammond hit Love repeatedly with the gun barrel, and Porter pulled her aside and raped her. After a disgusted Weldon left, Hammond bound Love's hands, feet and neck with coat hangers and covered her in a blanket. She somehow managed to free her hands, yelling "Don't do it."

Then, Hammond marched Love into the woods. About three minutes later, Porter heard a gunshot and saw Hammond return with blood on his face. When Porter said to his cousin, "you didn't do what I think you did," Hammond's response was "had to."

Love's disappearance put her friends and family into a frenzy. Her fiance, Mark Kaplan, who had proposed just a week before she went missing, found her abandoned red Mustang and prodded police to launch an investigation. Then he made fliers, organized rallies and turned his home into a staging area for hundreds of volunteers.

It was almost a year until investigators had a break in the case. In July 1989, Weldon, infuriated after suffering a particularly brutal beating by Hammond, went to a police station and told authorities about Love. Officers outfitted her with a recording device and sent her to talk to Porter, who corroborated what she said.

Authorities arrested Porter and Hammond, and they found Love's body in August 1989 about 30 yards from where Porter told them it would be.

Porter pleaded guilty to murder and rape charges and was sentenced to life in prison. Weldon was given immunity for her testimony.

Hammond's lawyers tried a new appeal strategy last week in a bid to delay the execution, saying they needed more time to investigate the state's supply of sodium thiopental, a lethal injection drug that's in short supply. They said in a hearing Monday that Georgia got the drug from Dream Pharma, a London company based in a driving school.

A Fulton County judge rejected the argument, saying Hammond had no evidence the drug was "adulterated or inferior." But his attorney appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday, claiming the state is about to execution someone using drugs illegally obtained from a "fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England."

Georgia attorneys have pushed back, contending there's no proof that the lethal injection drugs won't work.

Georgia's top court denied Hammond's appeal late Tuesday, and Hammond's attorneys were expected to ask federal judges for a reprieve.

Love's friends and family, meanwhile, are still trying to cope with her death. Roz Cohen, an administrator at The Epstein School, where Love worked, recalled a vivacious, energetic teacher whose life ended far too soon.

"She was so excited about her future," said Cohen. "A life, right at the beginning, was just cut short because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/26616459/detail.html

I really didn't see this coming. While I'm thrilled it's delayed, I could wish that it wasn't something that will be resolved quickly.


Also - based in a driving school? Don't you Brits regulate things?

[Lewkowski]

Pfft, time to send this demon back to hell. His life is worthless and the world would be a better place without him in it. If you don't like the drugs used to toss this bastard into the trash then shoot him in the gut a few times and let the filth bleed out.

[agamemnus]

I hereby nominate Lewkowski for Supreme Executioner of the United States.

[Timbuk2]

Also - based in a driving school? Don't you Brits regulate things?

Dream Pharma Ltd just happens to share the same building with the Elgone Driving Academy. The two companies are entirely unconnected.

This whole affair has kicked up a bit of a fuss over here. No one likes the fact that British drugs were used to kill someone.

The government is looking into restricting exports of drugs used in US executions; potassium chloride, pancuronium bromide, and sodium thiopental (as in this case). Business Secretary Vince Cable; "has already made clear his personal and the government's moral opposition to the death penalty."

Why these particular drugs are so hard to come by in the US is beyond me, however.

Dream Pharma already exported enough of these three drug types to Arizona state prisons to execute 10 people. Thus far it has been confirmed that one person, Jeffrey Landrigan, has been executed in Arizona with those drugs, on 26th Oct last year.

Not good.

[littlelolligagged]

There's not a big enough market for the drugs, I think. Wouldn't want to produce something that isn't profitable, after all.

I'm sure Lewk would say that's because we don't execute enough people.

I don't think Dream Pharma had any doubts about what their drugs were being used for; does that matter at all to Vince Cable and the government?

[Ominous Gamer]

There's not a big enough market for the drugs, I think. Wouldn't want to produce something that isn't profitable, after all.

Yep, same reason behind why if anyone is bitten by a coral snake this year, they're fucked.

[Hazir]

There's not a big enough market for the drugs, I think. Wouldn't want to produce something that isn't profitable, after all.

I'm sure Lewk would say that's because we don't execute enough people.

I don't think Dream Pharma had any doubts about what their drugs were being used for; does that matter at all to Vince Cable and the government?

Death penalty being a taboo in the EU and all that? I think it sure makes a huge difference; it wouldn't surprise me if government wouldn't be obliged to prohibit the shipping of these substances to countries where they concievably could be used to execute people.

The best way for a convict to prevent extradiction to the US is claiming that he's affraid of capital punishment.

[littlelolligagged]

I have no problem with governments being anti-death penalty and refusing to extradite for someone who is likely facing capital punishment.

That wasn't what I was asking, though. I was asking how the government official decrying the use of British drugs for executions feels about a British company that was more interested in making profits that maintaining ideals.

[Flixy]

In other areas ideals come before profits too, selling arms or chemicals is also very much restricted to certain countries.

[littlelolligagged]

As it should be.

[wiggin]

The government is looking into restricting exports of drugs used in US executions; potassium chloride, pancuronium bromide, and sodium thiopental (as in this case). Business Secretary Vince Cable; "has already made clear his personal and the government's moral opposition to the death penalty."

Why these particular drugs are so hard to come by in the US is beyond me, however.

I'm not really interested in commenting on the rest of this, but I can contribute some information here. These drugs are not particularly special at all, especially KCl (we've got a big container of it on my lab bench). The other two are a little more specialized, not being plain ol' salts, but they are common anesthetic agents, especially in veterinary surgeries and are used for some human applications in the clinic.

The real issue is that drug and chemical production is often centralized to one or two global locations. Certain 'basic' drugs aren't necessarily provided by more than one supplier in a country, and even if they are they often are produced in the same place and just packaged differently (the margins are pretty low on such drugs, so there's little competition). Also, some factories are sited in specific areas due to the local labor or regulatory environment, or because certain chemicals are extracted from locally-mined mineral extracts and the like (just look at potash production and the associated fertilizer plants). While this tends to lower costs and be fairly efficient, it can lead to shortages if a single plant goes offline for one reason or another (upgrades, work stoppages, regulatory changes, disasters, whatever).

Hospitals in the US have actually been contending with shortages of a number of critical drugs for a while now. Barbituates are on the list (including one also used for executions), but given the relative availability of alternatives, the bigger concern right now is a number of antimicrobial drugs (e.g. IV Bactrim). It's less of a problem where I work than most other places because our system is so big that we have serious negotiating powers and pull with the drug companies, but the shortages are pretty acute.

Dealing with other chemicals, I've regularly faced pretty dire shortages. During the economic downturn, acetonitrile became simply impossible to buy at any price - it's produced as a byproduct of acrylonitrile, and people were using less acrylonitrile, so acetonitrile production plunged, while research activity using it remained constant or increased. Similarly, I often find it hard to order sufficient quantities of ethyl ether (though that's partly because it's also used to freebase cocaine, so there are tight restrictions on its sale).

The point is that it's not unreasonable for only one or a handful of suppliers to be producing a chemical worldwide because the geography or economics ends up that way. It's very hard to calibrate production to fluctuating demand, and the 'all eggs in one basket' problem often surfaces if a problem develops. Obviously stockpiling and overcapacity is part of the solution, but that's expensive and has its limitations.

[Timbuk2]

Thankyou for the extensive answer.

I had no idea about any of this. It certainly gives a clear answer as to why three different States' Prison Authorities have approached a tiny pharmaceutical operation registered out the back of a Driving School in West London for certain drugs.

I would also have assumed that the free market is there to step in where there are shortfalls, but I guess this is a higher-tech and more specialised commodity than most, with all the complications of manufacture and raw-material supply that implies, as you state.

Ender, what exactly is it that you do for a living?

[wiggin]

I don't know the story with this particular drug company, but IIRC there was a problem recently when Abbott (the inventor of sodium pentothal), the sole US-based producer of the drug, stopped production because their production plant in Italy wasn't allowed to export materials that might be used for executions. This isn't such a big problem because most of its clinical and veterinary uses have been superseded by other chemicals, but I suppose it's a problem for some executions. I guess that various states are now looking to non-US suppliers in countries that don't have Italy's laws. Hell, it might even just be a front company that imports from another plant, relabels it in a more execution-friendly country, and exports to the US - I don't know. I doubt the actual manufacture happens in the back of a driving school.

Most chemicals don't have quite this level of politics associated with it, but the realities of most chemical production nowadays is that you'll only have a limited number of producers to work with, especially if the drug has minimal industrial and little clinical use.

Ender, what exactly is it that you do for a living?

I freebase cocaine.

More seriously, I'm finishing up my doctorate in biomedical engineering.

[rumrunner]

I hereby nominate Lewkowski for Supreme Executioner of the United States.

seconded.

[Loki]

I freebase cocaine.

More seriously, I'm finishing up my doctorate in biomedical engineering.

Like the two are mutually exclusive.

[wiggin]

Funny story about that, actually. Some guys were arrested in a lab at Northwestern for using lab supplies to cook up drugs. It was apparently a pretty big operation and fairly well concealed, but someone got suspicious at all of the night hours they were working (and maybe the somewhat odd list of chemicals they were going through in large quantities).

To be honest, the only thing keeping most wet lab types from cooking up some amphetamines or LSD or whatever is the fact that most are a combination of honest and lazy. It's not to hard to safely make crystal meth or ecstasy or whatever in a well-equipped chemistry lab (LSD is a bit more of a pain, and stuff like cocaine is very time consuming to make from scratch); it's just that most people are law abiding citizens.

[Loki]

Or are better at hiding their work than you think.

[wiggin]

No, word would get around the grad students if drug synthesis on a large scale was going on on a regular basis. I'm sure it happens - crazy shit happens in wet labs all the time - but given the relative ease of illicit production and the sheer number of people who have access to the means and knowledge, I suspect it's fairly rare proportionally.

I suspect that recreational use of legally bought drugs happens on a much more frequent basis (as opposed to production, presumably for sale). I know of multiple cases where various veterinary anesthetics (e.g. ketamine) or barbituates were misused, and I'm sure it's just as common in the veterinary world as it is in the medical world. The control of these drugs is rarely very tight; it's more of an honor system.

[Loki]

Well if I see you living in a mansion a decade from now, I'm going to assume it's from meth and not research.

[Catgrrl]

Besides, there's alot of more fun and dangerous chemicals to combine instead of wasting tedious hours making meth.

Ugh, I remember trying order vet supplies for one of my jobs and running into production issues. There was a time when getting ampicillin was impossible. I can imagine that even more potent drugs have this issue more often.

[Ominous Gamer]

Anything with even a slightly medical or dangerous use can be difficult for a layman to purchase. Mineral Oil is a common compound for people who want to submerge their PCs, but its also a dangerous laxative for farm animals. Ordering it large quantities causes questions, to the point that people have to hit up there vet for the stuff.

[wiggin]

Well if I see you living in a mansion a decade from now, I'm going to assume it's from meth and not research.

Probably not helping my case, but we spent about 15 minutes in lab meeting today talking about how to freebase various salt compounds.

[Loki]

The East coast is expensive. I don't judge.

[rumrunner]

...and stuff like cocaine is very time consuming to make from scratch)...

Especially considering that importing the coca plants is probably more difficult than smuggling actual cocaine. Unless you actually grow them yourself, which is another kettle of worms altogether.

Edit: WTF? All I did was delete the portion of wiggin's post I was not referring to and the quote line got all buggy. fixed

[Ominous Gamer]

QUOTE] needs to look like [/quote]

[rumrunner]

Ahh, yes. I deleted too much. Didn't notice that in my haste. fixing it now.

[wiggin]

Uhm, I didn't mean import the plants, I meant to synthesize the active compound from scratch. Currently it's way more expensive than cocaine from plants.

[rumrunner]

Forgive my ignorance here, but isn't the active compound derived from the coca plant? Unless you're talking about MDVP which different, but has a similar effect.

[wiggin]

Most drugs (including cocaine) have a single active ingredient that gives it its sought-after properties. In the case of cocaine, it's benzoylmethylecgonine, which is a single molecule that can be synthesized from basic chemical reagents (albeit at significant time and expensive given the number of potential stereoisomers). This does not require a plant, it's just that growing it and extracting/purifying the cocaine is miles cheaper than making it in a lab. Ditto for most other plant-based drugs.

[rumrunner]

Thank you, I am now enlightened.