DEA Seizes Lethal Injection Drug from Ga. Corrections Department

Georgia’s Department of Corrections turned proactive when a limited supply of a lethal injection drug delayed some executions in the United States.

The state imported the sedative sodium thiopental from England and used it two months ago in a three-drug execution cocktail to execute Emmanuel Hammond, convicted of the shotgun slaying of a preschool teacher. But now the Drug Enforcement Administration has seized Georgia’s supply of the sedative, citing questions about how it was imported, according to the Associated Press and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Hammond’s lawyer had argued Georgia bought the drug from a “fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England.” Then in February, another lawyer representing a death-row inmate asked the federal government to investigate whether Georgia officials had violated federal law by failing to register with the DEA when it imported the sedative.