06 Jan Nevada death row inmate kills himself
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A twice-convicted murderer who declared he wanted to die has apparently killed himself in his prison cell after his execution was twice postponed. Scott Raymond Dozier, 48, was found dead by hanging in his solo death-row cell at Nevada’s maximum-security prison, authorities said. Dozier’s lawyer, Thomas Ericsson, declined to comment immediately. Dozier had said repeatedly he wanted to die rather than live the rest of his life in prison and authorities said he’d tried to kill himself several times. “I’ve been very clear about my desire to be executed … even if suffering is inevitable,” Dozier said in a handwritten note to a state court judge who postponed death by lethal injection in November 2017 over concerns the untried drug regimen could leave him suffocating, conscious and unable to move. “Just get it done, just do it effectively and stop fighting about it,” the frustrated inmate told The Associated Press in a telephone interview last August, a month after a different judge stopped his execution at nearly the final hour. But his bid to become the first Nevada inmate put to death since 2006 was called off twice amid court fights over a three-drug combination that had never been used in the US: the sedative midazolam, the powerful opioid fentanyl and a muscle-paralysing agent called cisatracurium. Fentanyl is a drug blamed for drug overdose deaths across the US. Dozier gave up appeals for the death sentence he received in 2007 for separate killings of methamphetamine drug trade associates in 2002 in Phoenix and Las Vegas. But he allowed federal public defenders to challenge on his behalf the method that state officials planned to use. Those advocates argued that his lethal injection could be less humane than putting down a pet. Drug companies joined the fight, with cases still pending before the courts. They argue their products should not be used in an execution. Dozier, meanwhile, made it clear that he didn’t like legal limbo. Court papers indicate he tried several methods to kill himself in recent months, including attempting to obtain drops of a deadly drug on a piece of paper sent through prison mail. The filings were in a lawsuit that challenged Dozier’s housing on suicide watch in an isolation cell. Dozier’s lawyers also revealed that he apparently cut his neck and wrist with a razor in October. Prison officials reported that Dozier somehow obtained razor blades behind bars and that they had intercepted mail from Dozier’s sister with instructions on how to cut the jugular vein in his neck. Dozier was not on suicide watch on Saturday, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Santina said. Australian Associated Press
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A twice-convicted murderer who declared he wanted to die has apparently killed himself in his prison cell after his execution was twice postponed.
Scott Raymond Dozier, 48, was found dead by hanging in his solo death-row cell at Nevada’s maximum-security prison, authorities said.
Dozier’s lawyer, Thomas Ericsson, declined to comment immediately.
Dozier had said repeatedly he wanted to die rather than live the rest of his life in prison and authorities said he’d tried to kill himself several times.
“I’ve been very clear about my desire to be executed … even if suffering is inevitable,” Dozier said in a handwritten note to a state court judge who postponed death by lethal injection in November 2017 over concerns the untried drug regimen could leave him suffocating, conscious and unable to move.
“Just get it done, just do it effectively and stop fighting about it,” the frustrated inmate told The Associated Press in a telephone interview last August, a month after a different judge stopped his execution at nearly the final hour.
But his bid to become the first Nevada inmate put to death since 2006 was called off twice amid court fights over a three-drug combination that had never been used in the US: the sedative midazolam, the powerful opioid fentanyl and a muscle-paralysing agent called cisatracurium.
Fentanyl is a drug blamed for drug overdose deaths across the US.
Dozier gave up appeals for the death sentence he received in 2007 for separate killings of methamphetamine drug trade associates in 2002 in Phoenix and Las Vegas.
But he allowed federal public defenders to challenge on his behalf the method that state officials planned to use.
Those advocates argued that his lethal injection could be less humane than putting down a pet.
Drug companies joined the fight, with cases still pending before the courts. They argue their products should not be used in an execution.
Dozier, meanwhile, made it clear that he didn’t like legal limbo.
Court papers indicate he tried several methods to kill himself in recent months, including attempting to obtain drops of a deadly drug on a piece of paper sent through prison mail.
The filings were in a lawsuit that challenged Dozier’s housing on suicide watch in an isolation cell.
Dozier’s lawyers also revealed that he apparently cut his neck and wrist with a razor in October.
Prison officials reported that Dozier somehow obtained razor blades behind bars and that they had intercepted mail from Dozier’s sister with instructions on how to cut the jugular vein in his neck.
Dozier was not on suicide watch on Saturday, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Brooke Santina said.
Australian Associated Press
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