New Execution Drug Awaits Condemned Inmate

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) _ Condemned Texas prisoner Cleve Foster says he’s not afraid to die — but he doesn’t want to be a guinea pig.

The 47-year-old former Army recruiter would be the first inmate Texas has put to death with a new drug if his lethal injection is carried out Tuesday evening in Huntsville, as scheduled.

The drug switch is the most significant change in the execution procedure in Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is replacing the now-unavailable sodium thiopental, one of the three drugs it’s used in the lethal chemical mixture, with pentobarbital. The new drug more commonly is used to euthanize animals.

Foster faces punishment for the abduction and slaying of a woman in Fort Worth in 2002.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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