Drug companies to receive name of Nevada’s execution doctor

A view of the gurney inside the newly completed execution chamber at Ely State Prison on Nov. 10, 2016. (Nevada Department of Corrections)

Death row inmate Scott Dozier appears before District Judge Jennifer Togliatti during a hearing at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas on Sept. 11, 2017. Richard Brian Las Vegas Review-Journal @vegasphotograph

A judge ruled Tuesday that the Department of Corrections must reveal the name of the attending physician in the planned execution of Scott Dozier, but the name may be revealed only to the attorneys who represent the makers of drugs in the state’s lethal injection protocol.

Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith, who represents the prison system, told District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez that publicly revealing the name could lead to death threats.

Todd Bice, an attorney for Alvogen Inc., which makes the sedative midazolam, said the company’s lawyers wanted to ensure that the doctor who is expected to oversee capital punishment is a licensed physician.

Gonazalez said the identity of the state’s doctor must be turned over in court documents “for attorneys’ eyes only.”

The manufacturers of two other drugs in Nevada’s three-drug lethal injection protocol have joined Alvogen’s lawsuit against the state, arguing that their companies would suffer irreparable harm should the execution go forward as planned.

Dozier’s execution has been halted twice in Clark County District Court, most recently on July 11, hours before he was scheduled to die.

The prisoner, who waived his appeals in late 2016, was sentenced to die in 2007 after first-degree murder and robbery convictions in the slaying of Jeremiah Miller. The victim’s torso was found on April 25, 2002, in a suitcase that had been dumped in a trash bin at a Las Vegas apartment complex.

Dozier also had a murder conviction in the Arizona slaying of Jasen “Griffin” Greene before he was brought to Nevada to face charges in Miller’s death. Dozier would be the first prisoner executed in Nevada since 2006.

Gonzalez is expected to hear further arguments Wednesday in the fight over the use of the three drugs in Nevada’s lethal injection cocktail.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.