By Sam Stanton
sstanton@sacbee.com
Desperately seeking a drug that would allow them to execute a Death Row inmate last fall, California corrections officials scoured the nation for a dose of it, calling dozens of hospitals and local surgery centers, asking the federal government, Veteran's Administration officials and numerous other states for help, newly released documents show.
The documents, released late Tuesday as the result of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, reveal new details of how California sought unsuccessfully to cajole the governor of Texas to lend the state a supply of sodium thiopental, and how they reached out to officials nationwide seeking the drug. At one point, previously released documents state, they considered buying a batch from a supplier in Pakistan.
Finally, they turned to Arizona officials as part of what they described as a "secret and important mission" to pick up the drug from an Arizona prison south of Phoenix, then drive it to San Quentin.
The planned execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, which set off the search, never took place. California finally was able to find a British supplier of the drug for $36, 415, but details of that transaction remain secret.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement today saying the agency, "Does not review or approve products for the purpose of lethal injects."
But the FDA said it was releasing the shipment to California without reviewing the drug "to determine their identity, safety, effectiveness, surety or any other characteristics."
No executions are currently scheduled in California, but officials say delivery of the British supply of the drug has been approved by the FDA and should be arriving in California shortly.
"We're comfortable that it will be arriving in the coming days," corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said today.
The ACLU disputes whether that drug can legally be used in future executions and believes it is an issue that will be addressed in court, said Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the ACLU's Northern California branch, which filed the suit.
The nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting barbiturate that is the first of three drugs administered in lethal injection executions, has bedeviled corrections officials nationwide as they seek to put condemned inmates to death.
The U.S. maker of the drug has said it will not be able to manufacture new batches of it until early this year, and has made it clear to states that it opposes the use of the anesthetic in executions. That set off international searches for supplies of it by states seeking to put inmates to death.
But details of California's efforts last fall to put Brown to death remained sketchy until the ACLU prevailed in court to force release of public records that describe the dramatic efforts to obtain the drug.
So far, the ACLU has received nearly 1,200 pages of e-mails, correspondence and other documents from its lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and it says CDCR has promised that more are on the way.
The portrait the documents paint is one of officials calling everyone imaginable in search of the drug, which they first learned was in short supply last June.
"We have contacted 80-90 hospitals over the past few days and none of them have a drop of Pentothal," one e-mail written Sept. 16, two weeks before Brown's scheduled execution, states. "Most have been out for quite some time. I still have folks in the industry keeping an eye out and I will let you know if I hear of any leads."
That e-mail, like many in the documents released, had the identities of the sender and recipients redacted. But it is clear from the documents that extraordinary efforts were made to locate a supply of the drug.
"I called approximately 100 Hospitals and local general surgery centers," John McAuliffe, a contract worker for the corrections department, wrote to CDCR Undersecretary Scott Kernan on Sept. 29, the day before Brown was scheduled to die.
"Still have not heard from AZ," Kernan then wrote to department Secretary Matt Cate. "Trying not to press to (sic) hard."
Cate replied with an e-mail asking if military hospitals had been called and noting that he had called an official with Veterans Affairs.
Officials in other states were in similar positions. One e-mail that appears to have originated from the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office was sent to officials in dozens of states, as well as the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. In it, an official whose name is redacted asks, "(I)f anyone has any information on how to obtain this drug or any other ultra short-acting barbiturate, that would be extremely helpful."
Another e-mail indicates that officials in "Washington called every community hospital in the state and found one that had some they could borrow."
That sparked interest by California officials, with one writing that Cate, the CDCR secretary, "thought we should contact community hospitals (probably excluding the bay area) in the state to see if we can find any in stock."
Finally, California received guidance from Arizona corrections officials on how to obtain the drug from a London supplier. With officials in most states unable or unwilling to share their doses of sodium thiopental, a foreign supplier was the only avenue that officials believed viable.
"As we discussed on the phone today, we have followed the lead of Arkansas and purchased the drugs we need from a company in London," Charles Flanagan, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, wrote to a California corrections official Sept. 28. "Frankly, there was no possibility of getting the Thiopental Sodium/Sodium Pentothal from any source in the U.S., to include from any of the departments of corrections in other states that use the same 3-drug protocol as us."
American Civil Liberties Union documents
Call The Bee's Sam Stanton, (916) 321-1091.
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