Missouri’s Attorney General called on the state’s Supreme Court to set execution dates for two murderers before the state’s supply of its new execution drug, propofol, expires, according to a Monday press release.
The Supreme Court ruled last August that Attorney General Chris Koster’s previous request to set execution dates were premature because not all questions regarding the use of propofol in executions had been settled.
But Koster said that waiting until federal litigation is finished could prevent the state from going through with these exectutions at all, since much of its supply of the drug will expire next spring. Missouri announced it would be the first state to administer the drug for executions in May, just months before many of the manufacturers of propofol said it would no longer sell the drug for use in executions.
“The Court’s current position has allowed successive, limited supplies of propofol to reach their expiration dates. Unless the Court changes its current course, the legislature will soon be compelled to fund statutorily-authorized alternative methods of execution to carry out lawful judgments,” Koster said in the release.
