Execution of Carey Dean Moore

Carey Dean Moore (October 26, 1957 – August 14, 2018) was a convicted murderer, executed by lethal injection by the state of Nebraska. It was the first execution in Nebraska using lethal injection, and the state's first execution since 1997. The execution was the first in the United States to use fentanyl.

The execution took place on August 14, 2018, at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where Moore had been on death row since his conviction for killing two cab drivers in 1979; Moore was one of the United States' longest-serving death row inmates.

The execution used a novel drug cocktail of diazepam, fentanyl, cisatracurium, and potassium chloride. The German manufacturer of two of the drugs, Fresenius Kabi, sued the state of Nebraska and sought a restraining order to halt the execution, because EU law prohibits German companies from supplying pharmaceuticals that are used for capital punishment, which is regarded as a grave violation of international human rights law in Germany and other European countries, and because the manufacturer asserted that Nebraska authorities had acquired the drugs by fraud and in violation of the distribution contract which expressly prohibits sale, resale or distribution to American prisons. The lawsuit was part of a wider backlash against American prisons for using drugs obtained from European manufacturers in violation of the laws of their countries of origin.

The execution was the fourth in Nebraska since the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision, the first by lethal injection, and the first since a 2015 effort to ban capital punishment in Nebraska. Three other prisoners, including John Joubert and Harold Otey, were executed in Nebraska's electric chair in the 1990s.