It takes 33 years?

ATLANTA (Reuters) A federal judge refused late on Tuesday to issue a stay of execution for a man who claimed Georgia's supply of lethal injection drug sodium thiopental has "almost certainly" expired, meaning he would be subjected to an unnecessarily painful death.

In his ruling, Judge Timothy C. Batten held inmate Roy Willard Blankenship failed to prove his claims Georgia's supply of the drug has expired.

"Even if Blankenship could show that it was sure or very likely that the sodium pentothal has expired, he has failed to show that the expired drug is less effective and that its use will therefore cause him to needlessly suffer," Batten also ruled.

Georgia claims its stockpile of the drug does not expire until 2014.

Blankenship, sentenced to death for the 1978 murder and rape of a 78-year-old woman, had been scheduled for execution by lethal injection February 9 but the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay through February 17.

Sodium thiopental has been in short supply nationally after the only U.S. company that manufactured the drug halted production because it does not want it to be used in executions.
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Thirty-three years after a heinous crime the criminal will be killed in the most humane manner known. Roy Blankenship, for those who don't know, was tried and convicted for the 1978 Savannah rape and murder of 78-year-old Sarah Mims Bowen.
The pathologist described the elderly victim as having been beaten severely about the face, arms and over much of her body. There were numerous signs that the victim had been sexually assaulted and sodomized. The pathologist concluded that there were three possible causes of death: heart attack; heart failure; or strangulation, as indicated by marks on her neck.

Of course due process of law was in full force to do right by Roy:
The Original Trial and Appeal Proceedings (1980-1981)
First Resentencing Trial and Appeal (1982-1983)
Second Resentencing Trial and Appeal (1986-1988)
FirstStateHabeas Proceeding (1989-1992)
First Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding (1993)
Second Habeas Corpus Proceeding (1993-2005)
Second Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding (2005-2008)
11th Circuit Court of Appeals (2008)
United StatesSupreme Court (2009-2011)

So! For over 30 years Roy has been fed, housed, given medical care, clothed etc. at a rate of $17,500 (Georgia) which is less than the national average of $28,700...
somewhere between a half a million to $800,000 ... not counting court costs, public attorney, repeated lab tests or the damn paperwork for all this.

The Social Security Administration awarded $250 to Sarah Bowen for her burial.
The cost for a lethal injection of Sodium Pentathol is estimated to be less than $35. Sodium thiopental, is a fast-acting barbiturate (about 10 seconds) and general anesthetic. Along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, thiopental is used in 37 states of the U.S. to execute prisoners by lethal injection. A megadose is given which places the subject into a rapidly induced coma. Executions using the three drug combination are usually effective in approximately 10 minutes.

Sarah, being strangled, was conscious and in extreme pain longer than that before she died. Roy has been alive 30 years beyond that.

I truly think that Roy should be thankful. We spent too much time and money trying to be politically correct. A Muslim, a couple of days after Roy was convicted, would have given him an opportunity to pray to Allah and then beheaded him causing more pain but for a shorter time frame. Justice is swift!