The Supreme Court is reviewing lethal injection for the first time in seven years. Here’s what it means for the death penalty.
From Pacific Standard
The Supreme Court recently put three executions in Oklahoma on hold as it reviews the constitutionality of the state's death penalty protocol.
If the nation's top court strikes down Oklahoma's lethal injection procedure, what would it mean for the death penalty? We've asked the experts what you need to know.
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE SUPREME COURT REVIEWING?
The court is assessing Oklahoma's use of the drug midazolam, a sedative used in its three-drug lethal injection protocol. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, five states have used midazolam for their executions, and at least five other states have proposed using it.
In the wake of several botched executions in 2014 involving the drug, a group of death row inmates in Oklahoma filed a petition challenging the efficacy of midazolam to mitigate pain, which they claim would render the state's executions in violation of the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual" punishment....
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