Idaho inmate Richard Leavitt is scheduled for lethal injection on June 12th. That will come seven months after the state used a mixture of three drugs to execute Paul Rhoades. Idaho Department of Correction officials said today based on what they learned from that execution, they’ll now use just one drug.
Rhoades died after an injection team administered three drugs. One sedated him. Another stopped his breathing. And the last stopped his heart. Brent Reinke directs the Idaho Department of Correction. He says, "The first drug was pentobarbital. That will be the primary and only drug we use in this execution."
Reinke says he made that choice based on availability of the sedative, legal challenges, and the fact that other states use just one drug. Rhoades’s attorneys argued that a three drug combination would leave him conscious and in pain during the injection. A federal judge rejected that argument.
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