UPDATE: District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez effectively halted Nevada’s planned execution of Scott Dozier Wednesday by ruling in favor of a drug company that argued Nevada had obtained drugs it plans to use for lethal injection on the sly, and that using the drug for lethal injection would harm the company.
Executions are one thing. But harming business? No, Nevada, now you’ve gone too far.
Barring a last-minute ruling in a drug company suit – the company doesn’t want its drug used for a lethal injection – Scott Dozier is scheduled to be executed today in a prison a few miles outside of Ely. The R-J reports that the execution is “not the talk of the town,” but that frankly seems unlikely given the paper also reports the prison is Ely’s second largest employer (the prison industry is more stable than mining, the mayor adds).
Almost all the coverage of the execution invariably notes that Dozier says he wants to die — “just bang me up man,” he told Vice in a televised interview. Dozier’s stated willingness to die almost seems to be calming some Nevada nerves, which is perhaps not surprising. But make no mistake – Dozier’s death will be the result of a (risky and reckless) death penalty procedure, not an assisted suicide program.
Meantime, in some of the other coverage, the Indy’s Michelle Rindels has put together a profile of Dozier, a “great kid.” And if you missed it, you should read Dana Gentry’s piece in the Current about how, contrary to a conventional argument, the death penalty fails to bring closure to the families of murder victims.
(The above was excerpted from the July 11 Daily Current newsletter. To get the complete newsletter each day, sign up in the box at the bottom of this page.)
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