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DOJ drops lethal injection protocol used in Terre Haute executions

By George Hale

Posted January 20, 2025

Garland’s order cited executions in Terre Haute. (Courtesy of the Justice Department)

Outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland is ordering the U.S. prison bureau to abandon its lethal injection protocol for federal executions.

During former President Trump’s administration, the bureau used an anti-seizure medication called pentobarbital to execute 13 prisoners.

The executions occurred at a facility in Terre Haute, where all federal executions take place. After President Biden took office in 2021, Garland issued a moratorium on federal executions and ordered a study on the execution protocol.

Garland’s order, issued Thursday, cited findings by Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University who studies the effects of lethal injection.

Autopsies Zivot conducted on executed prisoners showed, in many cases, signs of a potentially excruciating condition called pulmonary edema, in which blood flows into the lungs.

“You drown in your own bloody, frothy fluid. And that's something that we see in autopsies over and over and over again, all around the country,” Zivot said.

The memo, however, conceded that there is uncertainty about whether prisoners experiencing pulmonary edema are conscious as it occurs.

One of the prisoners executed in Terre Haute was Alfred Bourgeois. Media witnesses said his body heaved and moved uncontrollably as the pentobarbital took effect.

Attorney Shawn Nolan warned that might happen, in litigation ahead of the execution.

“ This kind of feels kind of gratifying, I guess. Somewhat bittersweet because we lost clients during this process,” Nolan said Friday.

“Now that it's been made very clear that we were right all along, I would say that other states should stop using this method of execution.”

Indiana announced a similar one-drug execution protocol last summer and used pentobarbital to execute a state prisoner in December.

The incoming Trump administration could reinstate the pentobarbital protocol, which was put in place by former Attorney General Bill Barr.

However, President Biden’s decision last month to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row will make it harder for the news administration to resume executions at all.

The three remaining on death row are still in the appeals process.

Last summer, a chemical company accused of supplying pentobarbital to the federal government announced it would stop production of the drug's main ingredient.