Texas Executioners Playing Fast and Furious to Obtain Lethal Drugs
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has been buying a drug used to execute condemned prisoners from a compounding pharmacy with a history of safety violations, according to an investigation reported by NPR News on July 10, 2024.
After major pharmaceutical companies refused to participate in executions, TDCJ turned to Rite-Away Pharmacy and Medical Supply, located near San Antonio, to supply pentobarbital for executions from 2019 to at least late 2023. But state inspectors uncovered a troubling record at Rite-Away, with more than a dozen violations documented over the past decade, including unclean facilities, improper record-keeping and mishandling medications.
For allegedly fueling the opioid epidemic, the U.S. government in 2021 sued another location in San Antonio, Rite-Away Pharmacy & Medical Supply #2, the business operating name of Zarzamora Healthcare LLC, which was accused of distributing powerful painkillers to fill prescriptions that were evidently “not for any legitimate medical use,” according to a statement by the federal Department of Justice. Under a consent decree entered in federal court for the Western District of Texas on October 12, 2023, the firm and its pharmacist, Jitendra Chaudary, paid a $275,000 civil fine and were permanently enjoined “from dispensing certain opioid prescriptions, including combination opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions,” and required to “undergo periodic comprehensive reviews of their dispensing practices.” See: United States v. Zarzamora Healthcare LLC, USDC (W.D. Tex.), Case No. 5:22-cv-00047.
Although TDCJ declined comment, Rohit Chaudary, co-owner of the other Rite-Away branch, confirmed his involvement in selling injectable pentobarbital to the prison agency. The former pharmacist employed to compound it declined to be named for fear of reprisal but said that state employees arrived in unmarked cars to hand-deliver the active ingredient in a bag with a photocopied label, which he guessed came off a container bought from a “chemical company.”
“I don’t remember any of them ever coming in a DOC vehicle,” said the former Rite-Away pharmacist, “because, again, that would attract attention.”
Compounding pharmacies custom-create medications rather than selling standard drugs commercially available from pharmaceutical manufacturing firms. Although the federal Food and Drug Administration approves individual ingredients used, it does not approve compounded drugs in their finished form, not least because the process shortens drug shelf life. TDCJ has retested some old doses of pentobarbital before relabeling them with new “beyond-use” dates, which are much like expiration dates.
Texas was set to execute Ruben Gutierrez with pentobarbital on July 16, 2024, before a last-minute stay granted by the Supreme Court of the United States, which agreed to hear his challenge to the state’s refusal to conduct DNA testing on evidence used to convict him. See: Gutierrez v. Saenz, 144 S. Ct. 2718 (2024). TDCJ has scheduled four more executions in 2025.
Additional source: NPR News
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login