pentobarbital

With a lean supply of drugs usually used in human executions, prison bosses in Oklahoma have turned to a three-drug cocktail-including an pentobarbital, an animal euthanasia drug-to execute a murderer yesterday, Reuter reports. The convict, John David Duty (pictured left) was charged with murdering his cellmate with a bed sheet in 2001.

Prison officials said there were no issues with the use of pentobarbital, which has never been employed in an American execution before.



Attorneys had appealed its use, but a federal court in Oklahoma and an appeals court upheld its use as part of the execution, Reuters notes. Duty was already in prison serving two consecutive life sentences for robbery, shooting with intent to kill, and rape when he murdered his cellmate. After strangling his cellmate with a sheet, Duty then wrote to his victim’s mother and bragged about the murder, Reuters reports.

So the harshest penalty for the serial felon, John David Duty and the relatives and friends of the murdered cellmate should feel consoled in some way by the penalty.