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State To Keep Cocktail, Expand Death Chamber

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 12, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - The death chamber at Florida State Prison is being doubled in size to give execution teams more space to do their jobs, while the same lethal drug cocktail used in a botched execution five months ago will continue to be used, prisons chief Jim McDonough said Wednesday.

In its final report to Gov. Charlie Crist this year, the Governor's Commission on Administration of Lethal Injection had recommended Florida explore other chemical mixes. The panel was created after a mishandled execution in December at Florida State Prison.

'We took a close look of the solutions themselves, what was the concentration of the chemicals in the solution,' McDonough said in comments referencing 37 recommendations by the special panel. 'We determined that the three-drug cocktail that currently is being used here, and I believe in virtually every other state, was in fact the protocol we're going to stick with.'

Florida received materials from 17 of the 36 other states that use lethal injection, in addition to federal authorities.

The Associated Press

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