HOUSTON (AP) – Texas prison officials are asking a federal judge to rescind a U.S. Food and Drug Administration order that blocks the corrections agency from receiving a foreign shipment of a drug to use for executions.
Attorneys for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Galveston. They argue that it’s unlawful for the FDA to refuse importation of 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental that have been detained for nearly two years at Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport. The prison agency also wants the court to block the FDA from imposing similar prohibitions in the future.
Texas is the most active death penalty state in the U.S. Its prison agency bought the drugs from an unidentified foreign supplier.
The FDA last week refused to release the shipment.
(Copyright 2017, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
