Officials pursue lethal drug

The Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.: Exhibiting a disturbing hubris, Tennessee correctional officials have quickly set dates to execute two men on death row early next year, based on the state’s decision that it will change its lethal drug of choice.

Even if it made sense for Tennessee to get back into the practice of capital punishment, an assumption that is losing ground with each passing year, correctional officials are leaping into uncertain territory by planning to use the anesthetic pentobarbital to put to death first Billy Ray Irick in January and then Nickolus Johnson in April.

Ohio and Texas switched to pentobarbital and weathered some court challenges. Its predecessor was a three-drug cocktail designed to make the inmate unconscious before the lethal drugs ended his life. The efficacy of pentobarbital seems to be based on its veterinary use to euthanize animals.

The state of Tennessee tried very hard to maintain its drug protocol — even, according to federal law enforcement, by obtaining supplies of the key drug sodium thiopental illegally in 2011. Hubris, again. The supplies were seized.