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Montana House Judiciary Hears Bill to Broaden Lethal-injection Language
Summary
House Bill 205 would replace a statutory requirement that executions use an "ultra fast-acting barbiturate" with a broader phrase allowing "a substance or substances sufficient to cause death," a change supporters say would restore the state's ability to carry out executions and opponents say would invite constitutional challenges and risk cruel methods.
Representative Shannon Maness, sponsor of House Bill 205, told the House Judiciary Committee the measure is intended to address a practical barrier to carrying out executions: "We're looking at House Bill 205, an act revising laws related to the death penalty," Maness said, arguing that courts and drug shortages have left Montana unable to follow the statute as written.
The bill would remove a statutory requirement that an "ultra fast-acting barbiturate" be used in lethal injection and replace it with language allowing "a substance or substances sufficient to cause death," a change Maness said would let the Department of Corrections use whatever medically appropriate drugs are available. "This is not a bill on the death penalty. This is a bill on the administration of that death…
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