MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama is seeking to proceed with executions after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of a drug that the state plans to begin using in lethal injections.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a death row inmate’s lawsuit challenging the use of the sedative midazolam as inhumane. However, an attorney for inmate Tommy Arthur said the case should still go to trial because the Alabama execution process is different from the one reviewed by the high court.
The Supreme Court last month ruled 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Inmates had challenged the use of the drug, given at the start of execution, saying it was ineffective and would fail to render them unconscious while subsequent injections stop their lungs and heart.
Arthur has challenged the humaneness of the state’s current and previous drug combinations.
“Arthur’s allegations against the use of midazolam are practically identical to those that were rejected (by the U.S. Supreme Court)” lawyers for the state wrote. The attorney general office accused Arthur of conducting legal “gamesmanship” to try to delay his execution.