In Mississippi, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger carries an AP report, "Inmates' execution lawsuit thrown out."
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday filed by four death row inmates who claim Mississippi’s method of lethal injection is unconstitutional because it could cause pain.
Attorney General Jim Hood said the ruling clears the way for one of the condemned prisoners, Dale Leo Bishop, to be executed July 23. Bishop was one of four inmates who filed the lawsuit in October 2007. His attorneys filed an urgent motion Monday asking for an injunction because of the upcoming execution.
U.S. District Judge W. Allen Pepper dismissed the lawsuit in a 15-page ruling, saying the inmates were barred by a statute of limitations.
Bishop’s attorneys said they will appeal Tuesday’s ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. They claim the state has withheld information about the way it conducts lethal injections.
“It is important to understand that Judge Pepper did not rule that the Mississippi procedure for lethal injections met constitutional standards,” said Jim Craig, an attorney for the inmates. “The ruling was strictly on procedural grounds.”
And:
The Mississippi inmates argued that Mississippi’s method is different from the one used in Kentucky. Hood described the procedures as “substantially similar.”
The Mississippi inmates say no monitors are used to ensure that the drugs are taking effect properly. They also claim Mississippi’s execution staff is not properly trained.
There is additional coverage today for the stay of execution in Missouri to allow for a lethal injection challenge in that state to continue. In the Kansas City Star, Tony Rizzo writes, "Missouri Supreme Court delays execution."
The Missouri Supreme Court has stayed what would have been the state’s first execution since 2005.
John C. Middleton, a methamphetamine dealer and convicted killer from northern Missouri, was to be put to death by injection July 30.
The court recently notified his lawyers that the execution was stayed “until further order of the court,” but state officials have asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the stay.
Middleton’s lawyers requested the stay while they seek to have him added as a party in a federal lawsuit being pursued by other Missouri death-row inmates challenging the training and competence of members of Missouri’s lethal-injection team.
Although the state’s execution protocol has been found constitutional by a federal appeals court, attorneys for the inmates argue that the state has employed incompetent personnel in executions.
The federal judge has not ruled on adding Middleton as a plaintiff in that case.
Earlier coverage of the Mississippi lawsuit and the Missouri stay is here.
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