WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a sedative substituted for procedural drugs during executions does not violate the constitutional requirement against “cruel and unusual punishment”.
The 5-4 ruling came in the case of three Oklahoma death row inmates – Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole – whose executions had been scheduled for earlier this year.
The men claimed the use of a 500-milligram dose of midazolam, a sedative used as an alternative to three commonly used injections, could not achieve the required level of unconsciousness and may cause severe pain.
The court ruled against the prisoners, finding no evidence that midazolam caused severe suffering that goes against the Eight Amendment.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the decision for the majority, said the prisoners failed to identify an alternative that would produce less pain.
"It also held that the prisoners failed to establish a likelihood of showing that the use of midazolam created a demonstrated risk of severe pain,” he wrote. "The court held that this protocol does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments."
Alito also noted that last year, Oklahoma adopted an execution method of a three-drug protocol, namely "sodium thiopental [a barbiturate] to induce a state of unconsciousness, a paralytic agent to inhibit all muscular-skeletal movements, and potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest."
He added that as anti-death-penalty supporters pressured pharmaceutical companies to help prevent the cocktail from being used in executions, the Oklahoma court decided to use midazolam.
Concerns about midazolam were raised after it was used in several botched executions in 2014 that took longer than usual.
