A legal challenge by a drug manufacturer has forced the U.S. western state of Nevada to postpone an execution by lethal injection.
Scott Dozier was set to be executed Wednesday night for a gruesome 2007 robbery and murder when a judge ordered an indefinite stay after New Jersey-based Alvogen filed a lawsuit against the state to keep it from using its sedative, called midazolam, in the three-drug mixture that would kill Dozier.
Alvogen accused Nevada correction officials of illegally obtaining midazolam, as it is opposed to the use of any of its drugs in state-sponsored executions.
U.S. drug manufacturers have increasingly refused to sell states any drugs that could be used in the procedure, after disturbing details emerged from a series of botched lethal executions across the nation.A drug company unsuccessfully sued Arkansas last year to ban the state from using one of its drugs in the procedure.