Scott Langley has dedicated the last 26 years of his life to abolish the death penalty in the U.S., whether it’s his Death Penalty Photography Project or through his work with Death Penalty Action, the organization he co-founded.
He thinks abolishing the death penalty in America is long overdue.
“There's a worldwide trend away from the death penalty and away from executions,” Langley said, “and the United States is not following that trend.”
Langley’s activism brought him to Connecticut in early February. He spoke before the General Assembly in support of a bill that would prohibit state-based companies from selling drugs and equipment used in executions. Those materials haven’t been used in-state since 2012, when Connecticut outlawed the death penalty. Senate Bill 430 aims to close what activists call a troubling loophole that allows local businesses to profit from enabling capital punishment in other states.
A mother’s plea
Langley was joined at the state capitol by Lisa Brown, whose son was executed with a drug linked to a Connecticut company.
“I realized that I was witnessing the state-sanctioned, premeditated murder of my son,” she said during the hearing. “I am grateful to Connecticut for banning the death penalty, but it is deeply troubling to me that Connecticut companies are still profiting from it.”
Langley said Brown’s voice was vital to the discussion because it highlights the human toll of executions.
“It’s important to hear that voice, to know that this is a human issue,” he told Connecticut Public. “We’re not just talking about monsters or people who aren’t worthy of life. We’re talking about this whole process affecting a number of people and especially the family of the death row prisoners themselves.”
Death penalty drugs hard to get
Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture drugs used in lethal injections have largely refused to supply them for executions, citing ethical concerns. This occurs despite certain states having enacted secrecy laws to protect the identities of drug suppliers. This has forced some states to turn to lesser-known, non-FDA approved suppliers of death penalty drugs and equipment.
One such company has been Hamden-based Absolute Standards. In a 2023 episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” Oliver criticized the company for supplying drugs used in lethal injections in other states. The company later agreed to stop providing those products to prisons.
Botched executions
Critics argue the practice of states using non-FDA approved companies to get lethal injection drugs has led to a preponderance of “botched” executions in which the condemned person suffers before dying. Langley said the chance of poorer-quality drugs is no reason for his organization to stop pushing for companies to get out of the execution supply business.
“We can talk forever about what is more humane and the better way to do it, but the fact is, the death penalty is wrong and executions are wrong and we just need to stop it however we can,” he said. “If that means getting pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of various apparatus to stop selling that equipment or those drugs to states and governments, then that’s a tangible thing that we can ask and achieve.”
Langley believed that testimony like Brown’s is more likely to turn people against the death penalty than it is to turn people against his efforts to stop FDA-approved companies from producing execution drugs that actually work.
“Doing things like exposing the actual reality of what happens during executions does have great effect on public opinion,” he said. “That’s part of the hope of exposing the system – to get people to really see that human face and the reality of what happens.”
States turning to alternatives to lethal injection
As lethal injection drugs become harder to obtain, some states are exploring other methods, including firing squads and nitrogen gas.
Some companies manufacture products with non-lethal uses that can also be repurposed for these alternative method executions. For example, Walter Surface Technologies, a Connecticut-based company, produces respiratory masks that can be used in industrial settings but have also been converted into execution gas masks. Senate Bill 430 would prohibit the sale of such products for use in capital punishment.
Pushback and next steps
Critics of Senate Bill 430 argue that it could place unnecessary restrictions on businesses.
It would also be difficult to implement, said Bryan Cafferelli, commissioner of the state Department of Consumer Protection.
“The department regulates pharmaceutical drugs through the supply chain,” Cafferelli said in submitted testimony to lawmakers. “This bill would require us to dedicate additional resources not presently allocated to our agency to operationalize oversight and regulation of the end use of drugs with multiple uses.”
But Langley says the impact on companies would be minimal.
“One of the pushbacks we heard during the committee hearing was a fear that this bill would require companies to stop producing a product entirely, and that’s not at all what the bill is about,” he said. “It’s specifically about eliminating the use of the drug or apparatus in executions. Really, the things that we’re talking about — the drugs, the gas masks — are such a small fraction of the company’s bottom line. From a business perspective, it has minimal impact. From a human rights perspective, it has a huge impact.”
Even if the bill passes, Langley says the work is far from over.
“We just saw Louisiana schedule two execution dates in March. Louisiana hasn’t had any executions in the last 15 years. South Carolina is talking about carrying out an execution in March, also by firing squad,” he said. “The work doesn’t end with this. As we’re approaching to see how the Trump administration interfaces with the federal death penalty, our work is going to be very heavy before us.”
