The Department of Corrections on Friday announced it will go forward with the execution of Scott Raymond Dozier in November.
But the American Civil Liberties Union almost immediately issued a statement opposing the plan saying it uses “an untested experimental drug combination that has never before been used in an execution by lethal injection.”
ACLU Nevada Director Tod Story said the combination must be reviewed by the courts, “to ensure it complies with all state and federal laws.”
“It is very concerning that a paralytic is included, which could lead to conscious suffering and suffocation,” he said.
The three-drug cocktail approved this week by Corrections Director James Dzurenda consists of Diazepam, Fentanyl and Cisatracurium. The third drug on that list is a neuromuscular blocker used during surgery that, among other things, dramatically slows the heart rate and “causes the inability to move muscles” — paralysis — according to pharmaceutical information on the drug. At higher doses, it would cause death.
Diazepam is a powerful sedative used to treat anxiety. The remaining drug, Fentanyl, is an opioid used as a general anesthetic that, in higher doses, sharply depresses respiration rates.
According to a corrections department statement, the combination was approved after consultation with the Chief Medical Officer.
Nevada law requires any execution be inflicted by lethal injection.
If the Nov. 14 execution goes ahead as planned, it will be Nevada’s first in 11 years since Daryl Mack was put to death in April 2006.
It will also be the first time the state has used its new, $860,000 death chamber constructed less than two years ago at the Ely State prison in eastern Nevada.
Dozier, 46, faces a death sentence for killing and dismembering Jeremiah Miller in southern Nevada. He was also found guilty of second degree murder in the death of another victim found buried in the Arizona desert.
There are currently 82 men on Nevada’s death row but no women. The longest tenured death row inmate is Edward Thomas Wilson, who was convicted in 1979 of murdering Reno Police undercover narcotics officer James Hoff.