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Judge Blocks Planned Lethal Execution in Nevada

   A legal challenge by a drug manufacturer has forced the U.S. western
   state of Nevada to postpone an execution by lethal injection.

   Scott Dozier was set to be executed Wednesday night for a gruesome 2007
   robbery and murder when a judge ordered an indefinite stay after New
   Jersey-based Alvogen filed a lawsuit against the state to keep it from
   using its sedative, called midazolam, in the three-drug mixture that
   would kill Dozier.

   Alvogen accused Nevada correction officials of illegally obtaining
   midazolam, as it is opposed to the use of any of its drugs in
   state-sponsored executions.

   U.S. drug manufacturers have increasingly refused to sell states any
   drugs that could be used in the procedure, after disturbing details
   emerged from a series of botched lethal executions across the nation.A
   drug company unsuccessfully sued Arkansas last year to ban the state
   from using one of its drugs in the procedure.