Death row inmates lose attempt to bar execution drug

The US Supreme Court has ruled against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain.

The drug, the sedative midazolam, played a part in three long and apparently painful executions last year.

It was used in an effort to render inmates unconscious before they were injected with other painful drugs.

Four condemned inmates in Oklahoma challenged the use of the drug, saying it did not reliably render the person unconscious and thus violated the eighth amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Oklahoma and several other states started to use midazolam in executions after manufacturers in Europe and the US refused to sell them the barbiturates that were traditionally used to produce unconsciousness.

Lawyers for the Oklahoma inmates, with the support of experts in pharmacology and anaesthetics, said midazolam, even if properly administered, was unreliable.

They pointed to three executions last year that seemed to go awry.

In April 2014, Clayton D Lockett regained consciousness during the execution procedure, writhing and moaning after the intravenous line was improperly placed.

In Ohio in January 2014 and in Arizona in July, prisoners appeared to gasp and choke for extended periods.

Lethal injections

The Supreme Court last considered lethal injections in 2008, in Baze vs Rees, when it held that what was then the standard three-drug combination, using the barbiturate sodium thiopental as the first agent, did not violate the eighth amendment.

The new case, Glossip vs Gross, originally included a fourth inmate, Charles F Warner.

However, he was executed on January 15th after the Supreme Court denied his request for a stay by a 5-to-4 vote.

A little more than a week later, the court agreed to hear the remaining inmates’ appeals, and a few days after that it stayed their executions.

The inmates are Richard E Glossip, who was convicted of arranging the beating to death of his employer; John M Grant, who was convicted of stabbing a prison cafeteria worker to death; and Benjamin R Cole Sr, who was convicted of breaking his 9-month-old daughter’s spine, killing her.

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