Supreme Court agrees to review controversial execution drug

The Supreme Court is stepping into the issue of lethal injection executions for the first time since 2008, agreeing Friday to take up an appeal filed by death row inmates in Oklahoma.

The justices will review whether the sedative midazolam can be used in executions amid concerns that it does not produce a deep, coma-like unconsciousness. As a result, prisoners may experience intense and needless pain when other drugs are injected to kill him. The order came eight days after the court refused to halt the execution of an Oklahoma man that employed the same combination of drugs.

Oklahoma uses midazolam as one of three drugs in lethal injection executions. The second drug serves to paralyze the inmate and the third one is used to stop his heart.

The case probably will be argued in April, with a decision expected by the end of June.

The appeal was brought to the court by four Oklahoma inmates due to be executed in the months leading up to March. The justices allowed Charles Warner to be put to death on January 15 and denied stays of execution for the other three.

At the time, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by three other justices, calling on the court to examine whether the drug could be used in accordance with the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Friday's order does not formally call a halt to those scheduled procedures. But it is inconceivable that the court would allow them to proceed when the justices already have agreed to a full-blown review of the issue.

In 2008, the justices upheld the use of a different three-drug combination in a case from Kentucky and set a high bar for challenges to lethal injections. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote then that the court probably would not stop executions unless "the condemned prisoner establishes that the state's lethal injection protocol creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain."

What has changed since 2008 is that states have been forced to change the drugs they use in executions after manufacturers took steps to ensure their products were not used in executions.

The inmates are trying to stop their executions, arguing that the state would essentially be experimenting on them by injecting them with unproven and untested drugs.

"The drug protocol in Oklahoma is not capable of producing a humane execution, even if it is administered properly," said Dale Baich, a lawyer for the three surviving inmates.

Last April, Oklahoma used midazolam for the first time in a grisly procedure. Inmate Clayton Lockett clenched his teeth, moaned and writhed on the gurney before a doctor noticed a problem with the intravenous line and the execution was called off. Lockett died 43 minutes after the procedure began.

Oklahoma revamped its procedures in response to the Lockett execution, including a tenfold increase in the amount of midazolam used. In last week's execution, Warner showed no signs of physical distress.

Florida used the same procedure in an execution carried out the same night.

The Associated Press