Supreme Court Upholds Use Of Controversial Lethal Injection Drug

<p></p><p>The Supreme Court has upheld the use of a controversial drug that has been implicated in several delayed executions.</p><p></p>

Monday, June 29th 2015, 10:09 am

By: News 9


The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of a controversial drug that has been implicated in several delayed executions. 

The justices on Monday voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. Supreme Court opinion

The drug was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that took longer than usual and raised concerns that it did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep.

In the Oklahoma case, Clayton Lockett took over 40 minutes to die.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt argued the state had done its homework . But Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the use of the paralytic might render midazolam ineffective, and it would be impossible to know whether the inmate was conscious and could feel pain. That is the very argument for the attorneys representing the death row inmates.

4/28/2015 Related Story: Supreme Court To Rule If Oklahoma Execution Drug Is Constitutional

Death row inmates and their attorneys argued the drug cocktail is experimental.

Investigations showed Lockett's vein burst during the execution process. The drugs went into his tissue not his veins, and he died of a massive heart attack, according to the follow-up investigations.

The state revised execution protocols after Lockett's death in April, 2014. New protocols called for expanded training for personnel administering drugs and to increase the drug dosages in the cocktail.

The state has made it law that nitrogen hypoxia could now be used for executions.

Governor Mary Fallin released the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Glossip v. Gross that upheld as constitutional Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol:

“The Constitution is clearly not intended to prohibit the death penalty by lethal injection or the use of the sedative midazolam. I appreciate the Court's ruling, which upholds the letter and the spirit of the law as it is written. My thanks go out to Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Solicitor General Patrick Wyrick and their legal team for aggressively and successfully representing the state on this issue.”

The Attorney General's Office, pursuant to state law, will notify the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that the court is now able to set execution dates for Richard Glossip, John Marion Grant, and Benjamin Robert Cole.

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