All federal executions take place in Terre Haute. (WFIU/WTIU News)
Lawmakers in Connecticut want to ban state companies from profiting off drugs used in federal executions, all of which are carried out in Indiana.
Senate Bill 430 would ban people and businesses in Connecticut from making, selling or testing drugs for the purpose of carrying out executions.
Read more: Company supplying drugs for executions ends pentobarbital sales
The legislation follows reporting last year that a Connecticut-based chemical supply company manufactured the main component of an anti-seizure medication used by the Trump administration to execute 13 prisoners in Terre Haute.
“Part of me hopes that when Connecticut moves in this direction, many of the other — if not most — of the other states will do something similar,” the bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Saud Anwar, said in an interview.
“Companies in the State of Connecticut should not be involved — in any shape or form, directly or indirectly — part of any other state’s or beyond’s efforts to be part of the death penalty,” he said.
He promised to introduce the legislation last summer, even after receiving assurances that the Connecticut company Absolute Standards planned to stop making pentobarbital. Anwar said he hoped the legislature would take up a vote before early June.
“I don't think that I've seen another state attempt to do what Connecticut is proposing,” said Robin Maher, lecturer at The George Washington University’s law school and executive director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center. “It's hard to know what kind of effect this might have.”
Maher pointed to foreign prohibitions against the exportation of certain drugs used in executions in the United States as the closest analogy.
As a result of those provisions and increased scrutiny of lethal injection as an execution method, states with the death penalty work hard to protect suppliers.
“All of the active death penalty states now have secrecy provisions in place that prevent us from knowing where they obtain their drugs. So, I don't know how many other states might be looking to Connecticut for their drug supply,” she said.
Read more: What is pentobarbital? More questions than answers
Indiana’s corrections department used pentobarbital last year when it resumed executions after a 15-year pause. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb said at the time that he couldn’t disclose the supplier due to a 2017 law protecting its identity.
Anwar’s bill is facing opposition from several sides in the legislative session, including from groups that don’t necessarily support capital punishment.
They include Connecticut veterinary and hospital groups which fear the ban would make it harder to obtain drugs for other purposes.
“We are extremely hesitant to give manufacturers a reason to stop making these drugs, many of which are not high-profit drugs,” the Connecticut Hospital Association said in written testimony to the General Law Committee last month.
“Because the risk of losing access to the shortage drugs is so serious and can place healthcare providers in Connecticut in situations where they must scramble for other drugs to use to be able to provide safe patient care, we ask that the bill not go forward as written.”
Eva Ceranowicz, a Connecticut veterinarian, said that she used pentobarbital for euthanizing animals that are suffering or have terminal illnesses.
“The ability to relieve animal suffering through humane euthanasia is a somber yet critical part of veterinary medicine,” Ceranowicz said.
“Our concern with this legislation is that some of the drugs used for the purpose of executing the death penalty may be the same or of the same class as those commonly used in veterinary medicine for humane euthanasia, especially pentobarbital. We ask that this legislation does not in any way restrict access to these drugs for use in veterinary medicine.”
Anwar, who is also a medical doctor, said that his bill was not intended to reduce the supplies of medications used in executions.
“There are legitimate, life-expanding, life-improving purposes for many medications,” he said. “The intention is in no way to try and restrict that.”
Anwar added that he was open to altering the language to alleviate these concerns.
“We are in the process of working very closely with the (Connecticut) Department of Consumer Protection … so that they can look at the implementation process, as well,” Anwar said. “And then we are trying to finalize the language.”
Read more: Governor dismisses concerns about executions using new drug
Other medical professionals have testified in favor of the bill, including Barbara Battista, a pharmacist and physician’s assistant in Vigo County.
Battista, who is also a Catholic nun, prayed with two of the men executed with pentobarbital during the first Trump administration.
“I urge you to close this ‘back door’ to capital punishment in your state,” Battista told the lawmakers, appearing via video. “The manufacture and sale of execution drugs is just another way to say ‘we support capital punishment.’”
