US state executes killer with drug used on animals

WASHINGTON–A man convicted of killing a 13-year-old girl has been put to death in Arizona with an injection of a drug used to euthanize animals, a growing trend for US states, officials said Thursday.

Donald Beaty, 54, convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of Christy Ann Fornoff, was pronounced dead at 7:38 pm Wednesday (0138 GMT Thursday), amid appeals over the controversial use of pentobarbital.

He was the 19th person to be executed in the United States so far this year, and the 11th using that drug.

Some US states have begun carrying out death sentences with pentobarbital because production of the usual anesthetic, thiopental, has ceased in the United States — prompting some states to import the drug from Britain, which Arizona did for executions in October 2010 and March 2011
“The lethal injection drug shortage has only highlighted how the process can become sloppy, costly and needlessly painful for family members,” the ACLU said in a statement.

“The US Drug Enforcement Agency needs to consistently enforce the law in all states,” said the group. “Prison officials cannot just order them off the Internet, without any control or sanction.”