Judge OKs Georgia LI Method

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "Federal judge says Ga. lethal injection method OK."

A federal judge in Atlanta on Wednesday rejected arguments that Georgia's method of execution by lethal injection is unconstitutional.

Ruling from the bench after 90 minutes of arguments, U.S. District Court Judge Beverly Martin found Georgia's procedures similar enough to Kentucky's, which were upheld last month by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In some ways, it seems a little bit better the way they try to do it in Georgia," she said.

Martin denied relief to condemned killer Jack Alderman, convicted of killing his wife outside of Savannah in 1974. Her ruling also clears the way for Tuesday's planned execution of William Lynd for killing his girlfriend in Berrien County in 1988.

Alderman's lawyers, from the New York law firm Clifford Chance and Atlanta's King & Spalding, fiercely litigated the challenge, taking testimony from state prison officials and experts. They contend Georgia's procedures pose an unacceptably high risk of severe pain and run afoul of the Constitution's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer carries an AP dispatch, "Judge dismisses execution challenge."

Georgia is set to move forward with another execution Tuesday, which could make it among the first states in the nation to put an inmate to death following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It has been nearly seven months since an execution in the United States, the longest pause in a quarter-century.

William Earl Lynd is set to die in Georgia for the 1988 slaying of his girlfriend in Berrien County.

Mississippi's attorney general is seeking to have death row inmate Earl Wesley Berry executed on Monday.

The lethal injection index, with full coverage of Baze v. Rees, is here.