Georgia Changes Execution Protocol

State Prepares for Troy Anthony Davis Execution

Georgia has changed it execution protocol. As a result of the state's sodium thiopental being confiscated by the DEA, Georgia will now incorporate Pentobarbital into its three drug execution protocol.

According to the Associated Press, corrections officials met with counterparts in Ohio and Oklahoma, which have already used pentobarbital to execute inmates. They have also collected hundreds of pages of legal filings and other documents about the drugs, and drafted several proposals for the switch

Georgia is now one of at least 10 states that have switched or are considering a switch to pentobarbital, a surgical sedative that's also commonly used to euthanize animals.

Switching to pentobarbital should allow the state to move ahead with the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, whose high-profile case has become a rallying point for opponents of the death penalty, reported the Associated Press.

Prosecutors have spent more than two decades trying to execute Davis, who was sentenced to die for the 1989 slaying of a Savannah police officer, and the state won a key legal battle in March when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected what could be his final appeal. But prosecutors couldn't schedule his execution because Georgia did not have the lethal injection drug.

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