The top law enforcement official in Oklahoma has asked a state appellate court to not set execution dates pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the lethal injection.
Attorney General Drew Edmondson said he is confident the state's lethal injection procedures are valid, but added it is prudent to postpone executions until the U.S.'s highest court hears an appeal in November by two convicted killers in Kentucky who argue that their state's injection method is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
Edmondson submitted his request to halt executions to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.
The hearing before the Supreme Court is being closely watched by those on both sides of the death penalty dispute and comes after several lawsuits have been filed across the U.S. challenging the constitutionality of the lethal injection. In some cases, courts have ruled that states must revise their standards.
The American Medical Association has also issued a ban on physicians participating in the executions, saying it violates the oath doctors take to cause no harm. The ban has further complicated efforts in some capital punishment states to secure necessary medical supervision for the procedure.
Edmondson said Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol has withstood previous court challenges, but the Kentucky case "poses a unique question."
"The issue before the Supreme Court is what standard defines cruel and unusual," he said. He said the Oklahoma standard prohibits "the wanton infliction of pain," while in the Kentucky case, the defendants are asking the court to set the standard at "unnecessary risk of pain."
He said he sought the delay in setting execution dates because the court are likely to issue injections anyway. In Texas, the U.S.'s busiest death penalty cases, two stays of executions were recently granted because of the case before the Supreme Court.
The governor of Alabama last week issued a temporary stay of execution for one condemned inmate pending the high court's decision.
Oklahoma has executed 86 inmates by lethal injection since 1990 after two decades of no executions. The electric chair and firing squad are listed as backup forms of execution in the event the lethal injection law is invalidated.
A total of 38 states use the lethal injection process, which generally involves a three-drug cocktail intended to anesthetize, paralyze and then kill the inmate.
The procedure was devised as a humane alternative to electrocution and the gas chamber, but critics say the three-drug cocktail does not always work as quickly as intended and inmates are subjected to excruciating pain before they die.
The Supreme Court is not expected to rule on the Kentucky case until some time next year.
Source: AP Features
