LAS VEGAS (AP) — An advocate says Nevada's governor or prisons chief should stop the planned execution next month of a death-row inmate until questions about the process and a never-before-used, three-drug cocktail are answered.
American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada legal chief Amy Rose says the courts never decided whether Scott Raymond Dozier would experience pain or suffocate to death — or if the protocol developed for his lethal injection was constitutionally adequate.
Rose concedes her group doesn't have legal standing to act on Dozier's behalf unless he asks for it.
Dozier has said he wants to die and doesn't really care if he experiences pain. But he did let a team of federal public defenders challenge the drugs and method that Nevada prison officials planned to use.
That challenge was rejected by the Nevada Supreme Court last month on procedural grounds.
Gov. Brian Sandoval said last year he only has authority under state law to stay an execution up to 60 days after a sentence is handed down. After that, it's up to the state Pardons Board.