A drug company’s lawsuit halted the Wednesday night execution of condemned killer Scott Dozier about nine hours before he was set to die.

District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez heard arguments in the civil case for about two hours before barring the Nevada Department of Corrections from using one of the three drugs it had planned to include in Dozier’s lethal injection.

The Department of Corrections later announced that it had postponed the execution.

“The execution, which was ordered by the court, will not take place until further notice,” according to the announcement.

Dozier, 47, was to be executed at 8 p.m. at Ely State Prison with a drug combination never before used in capital punishment. It would have been the first execution in Nevada since 2006.

District Judge Jennifer Togliatti signed Dozier’s execution warrant last month.

‘Irreparable harm’

Alvogen Inc., which started distributing the sedative midazolam in August, filed a lawsuit Tuesday that accused the Department of Corrections of surreptitiously obtaining the drug for use in the execution.

In an April 20 letter distributed to governors, attorneys general and prison directors in each of the 31 states that carry the death penalty, the multibillion-dollar drug company “wrote in the clearest possible terms that Alvogen strongly objects to use of its products in capital punishment,” according to the lawsuit.

Within days of learning that their product was obtained by Nevada prison authorities, the company moved to stop the execution, arguing that Alvogen would suffer “immediate and irreparable harm” should it proceed.

Last week, the Department of Corrections disclosed its lethal injection procedures, revealing for the first time the planned use of the drug that had been banned in Arizona executions and decried by civil rights groups across the country.

Gonzalez said the case centers on Alvogen’s right to decide not to do business with someone, including the government.

“The plaintiff has a reasonable probability that it will suffer damages to its business reputation which will impact investor relations and customer relations,” the judge said in her ruling.

Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith, representing the prison system, said he planned to file an emergency appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court.

Gonzalez scheduled a status hearing for Sept. 10. Togliatti later issued a stay of execution.

‘Business Dispute’

In court Wednesday morning, Alvogen attorney Todd Bice said the company is in the business of making “life-preserving medication and drugs.”

“This motion is not about the merits of the death penalty and when it is appropriate,” Bice told Gonzalez. “This is a business dispute.”

Smith, who participated in the hearing from Ely via video conference, said the state made no misrepresentation.

“This whole action is just PR damage control,” he argued.

Smith told Gonzalez that she should consider the victim’s family, which has “waited a long time” for the state to carry out Dozier’s death sentence.

The lawyer said Gonzalez also should consider Dozier’s wish to die.

“He has said goodbye to his family,” Smith told the judge.

Officials planned to use a three-drug cocktail of midazolam, the painkiller fentanyl and the paralytic cisatracurium for Dozier’s execution.

In its complaint, the drug company demanded the immediate return of the state’s supply of midazolam, arguing that the sedative was purchased “by subterfuge with the undisclosed and improper intent to use it for the upcoming execution in complete disregard of plaintiff’s rights.”

Lauren Kaufman, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which filed a separate lawsuit last week seeking public records related to the state’s lethal injection procedures, said the group was still reviewing records Wednesday to determine further legal action.

“We’re absolutely pleased that the court has recognized through their ruling that there’s a very real possibility that NDOC received these drugs through subterfuge,” she said. “It just goes to show that without forcing transparency on this issue, the state was not going to do it on their own.”

Two Murder Convictions

Dozier 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 the Copper Sands apartment complex in the 8100 block of West Flamingo Road.

Miller’s family had not planned to watch Dozier’s execution, but his father, David, reached out to Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci, who prosecuted the killer, Wednesday afternoon.

“They were obviously interested and concerned about what was happening,” Pesci said. “They seemed disappointed and confused as to how something in business court could stop this.”

The family has declined, through the prosecutor, to speak with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Dozier also had a prior murder conviction.

He was convicted of second-degree murder in the Arizona slaying of Jasen “Griffin” Greene and was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2005, before he was brought to Nevada to face charges in Miller’s death.

Hours before Nevada was set to carry out the country’s first lethal injection using the powerful opioid fentanyl, a judge on Wednesday halted the execution because of a challenge from a drug company that objects to the state’s plan to use one of its products as a sedative for the procedure.

Nevada’s plans to use fentanyl as part of its execution of Scott Dozier — a convicted murderer who has said he wants the lethal injection to proceed — made it the latest in a string of states that have turned to unprecedented drug combinations or uncommon execution methods as they try to carry out death sentences amid difficulties obtaining drugs.

While some other states have turned to comparatively unknown chemicals, Nevada’s plan stood out for relying on fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller that has helped fuel the country’s ongoing opioid epidemic. Depending on what happens in Dozier’s case, Nebraska ultimately could wind up carrying out the first fentanyl-assisted execution, something that state is seeking to do this summer.

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LAS VEGAS — A Nevada judge is halting the use of a drug in the execution of twice-convicted killer Scott Raymond Dozier hours before he was scheduled to die by a first-of-its-kind lethal injection mixture. Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez ordered the delay Wednesday morning in response to a challenge by New Jersey-based drugmaker Alvogen, which says it doesn’t want its product, midazolam, used in “botched” executions.

Alvogen’s objections were aired at a hearing that unfolded less than 11 hours before Dozier was to be put to death with a three-drug injection never before tried in the U.S.

The pharmaceutical company urged a judge to block the use of midazolam, saying the state of Nevada obtained the product through “subterfuge” for unapproved purposes. Dozier has insisted he wants to be executed and doesn’t care if it’s painful. The ruling effectively put the execution on hold.

Todd Bice, an attorney with Alvogen, accused the state of deceptively obtaining the company’s drug by having it shipped to a pharmacy in Las Vegas rather than the state prison in Ely. Alvogen sent a letter to state officials in April telling them it opposes the use of its products in executions, particularly the sedative midazolam, Bice said.

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Nevada’s execution of a man convicted of murder was halted on Wednesday, after the manufacturer of one of the drugs that was to be used in the lethal injection argued that the state had obtained its product illicitly.

A district court judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Nevada officials from using the drug in the execution. It was the first time that a pharmaceutical manufacturer has been able to stop an execution — at least temporarily. It is likely to intensify the battle between officials in death-penalty states and drugmakers that object to their products being used to kill inmates.

Nevada had planned to use three drugs in the execution of Scott Dozier, who has been on death row since 2007: one as a sedative, one to paralyze him, and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl to help kill him. The execution would have been the first to use fentanyl, which kills thousands of Americans every year and is at the forefront of the nation’s overdose crisis.

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Pharmaceutical firm Alvogen argued the state had illegitimately obtained one of its drugs and that the proposed drug combination was untested in executions.

Scott Raymond Dozier, a twice-convicted killer, has said he prefers to be executed rather than stay in prison.

On Wednesday morning, a judge sided with the company and ordered a delay.

Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez issued the ruling after Alvogen argued that the prison had tricked their distributor into selling the drug, despite the company’s known objection to selling it for executions.

The execution of 47-year-old Dozier had been scheduled for Wednesday night.

Officials had planned to use an untried three-drug lethal injection made up of the sedative midazolam, the synthetic opioid fentanyl and the muscle paralytic cisatracurium.

The drug cocktail is meant to slow breathing and eventually paralyse the prisoner’s muscles to stop their breathing.

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