For Immediate Release
July 10, 2018
For More Information
Emma Tacke
208-401-6246
emmat@catholicsmobilizing.org
Washington, D.C. - As Nevada prepares to carry out its first execution in twelve years on July 11, grave concerns have been raised about the number of death-row inmates in that state who stop fighting for their life and about the drugs to be used in the execution. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the Executive Director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, said, "Nevada has a distressing history of executing people like Scott Dozier, who voluntarily waive their legal appeals. These kinds of executions amount to the state assisting with the suicide of people who have lost all possibility of hope.” Mr. Dozier will be the twelfth out of thirteen inmates executed in Nevada who gave up his final appeals.
Nevada intends to use an experimental three-drug protocol that has never been tried in the U.S. One of the drugs, Fentanyl, has contributed significantly to the spike in U.S. drug overdoses and is responsible for roughly half the deaths in the nation’s opioid crisis. “The fact that Nevada plans to intentionally kill a human being using a drug with such an insidiously destructive track record is contrary to upholding human dignity and a shameful embodiment of the ‘throwaway culture’ that Pope Francis has warned about,” Vaillancourt Murphy stated. One of the other lethal injection drugs, midazolam, has been linked to botched executions in several states.
Catholic Mobilizing Network calls on all Catholics and people of goodwill to oppose the death penalty in all cases. The planned execution of Scott Dozier is going forward only because he is cutting short the review process and because courts are willing to look the other way as states carry out experimental procedures on human beings. This execution highlights the inhumanity of the death penalty and the urgent need to transform the criminal justice system to promote redemption and healing.
Follow CMN on Twitter @CMNEndtheDP for status updates on Mr. Dozier’s execution the evening of Wednesday, July 11, 2018.
Catholic Mobilizing Network works in close collaboration with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, proclaims the Church’s pro-life teaching and encourages informed involvement to end the death penalty and promote restorative justice.
