Nebraska’s corrections department has taken a key step to initiate the state’s first execution since 1997, although no date has been set.
The Department of Correctional Services on Thursday notified death-row inmate Jose Sandoval of the lethal injection drugs to be used in his execution.
Sandoval was sentenced to death on five counts of first-degree murder for the September 2002 deaths of five people in a Norfolk bank robbery.
The department is required to notify an inmate of the drugs to be used at least 60 days before the attorney general asks the Nebraska Supreme Court for an execution warrant.
The department says it will use diazepam, fentanyl citrate, cisatracurium besylate and potassium chloride and says it has access to all of the drugs.