Nebraska prison officials have obtained a new supply of one of the three drugs used in Nebraska's lethal-injection protocol, meaning the state can resume executions.
Immediately after the announcement was made Thursday, Attorney General Jon Bruning said his office had asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to set an execution date for death-row inmate Michael Ryan, convicted of killing James Thimm during a ritualistic torture at a farm near Rulo in 1985.
The Department of Correctional Services said it paid $5,411 for 485 grams of sodium thiopental Oct. 25 to NAARI, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Switzerland.
The supply includes two batches (42 grams and 443 grams) with expiration dates of May 2013 and December 2013, respectively. Samples were tested and confirmed to be sodium thiopental by an independent U.S. laboratory.
"With the receipt of this chemical ... DCS stands ready to fulfill its statutory obligation with regard to capital punishment," director Robert Houston said.
The Department of Correctional Services had been without an approved supply of sodium thiopental since the Drug Enforcement Administration declared Nebraska illegally had imported the drug from an Indian company earlier this year.
Corrections officials said in December they had paid $2,056 to Kayem Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. of India for 500 grams of sodium thiopental. The drug has been in short supply since last year, when the only U.S. manufacturer, Hospira Inc., said it was ending production because of death-penalty opposition overseas.
The Journal Star reported earlier that court documents show a lawyer with correctional services was told via an email message from the DEA that Nebraska's DEA registration did not allow it to import controlled substances.
The state then obtained an import license from the DEA on May 25.
A lawyer for death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore challenged the legality of a supply of a lethal injection drug the state bought from Kayem. Moore had been scheduled to be executed June 14, but the state Supreme Court issued a stay of execution while the lawyer, Jerry Soucie of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, challenged the purchase in Douglas County District Court.
Aside from the now-moot challenge to the India drug purchase, Soucie is challenging Nebraska's lethal injection law, passed in 2009 after the state's high court ruled death in the electric chair amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
He said lawmakers unconstitutionally allowed correctional services to set a lethal injection protocol and exceeded their authority by passing a law that changed Moore's sentence from death by electrocution to lethal injection.
Soucie also said Bruning's office continued to push for an execution date for Moore even though it knew -- but did not publicize -- that it could not use the drug it bought from Kayem.
Soucie since has amended his appeal, saying, among other things, that Moore was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by being allowed to believe he might die on June 14. He also said Moore might have been denied his right of due process.
That challenge is pending.
Dave Cookson, chief deputy attorney general, said earlier that his office contacted officials in the U.S. Department of Justice and both sides agreed the state would apply for the proper import license and seek a new supply of the drug.
He also said the state could have had a supply of the needed drug by June 14.
Moore, 53, has been on death row since 1980, sentenced to die for killing Omaha cab drivers Maynard D. Helgeland and Reuel Eugene Van Ness during botched robberies in 1979.
The state has not executed an inmate since Robert Williams died in the electric chair in 1997.
A federal lawsuit filed in Arizona challenged the use of the drugs from overseas suppliers, saying they may be substandard and could lead to problems during executions. Late last month, the U.S. Justice Department ordered Arizona not to use its supply of sodium thiopental because it had been obtained illegally from Great Britain.
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