"Court to examine use of new execution drug," is the Ocala Star-Banner report by Kristine Crane. Here's the beginning:
When Florida executed William Happ on Oct. 15, news media accounts of the execution highlighted Happ’s apparent physical discomfort during a procedure that also lasted slightly longer — 16 minutes — than usual.
Happ’s execution also marked the first time in the history of executions in the United States that the anti-anxiety drug Midazolam, commercially known as Versed, was the first drug used in a three-drug protocol. It was followed by a paralytic, or drug that induces paralysis, and finally the drug that causes cardiac arrest and death.
Before the execution, lethal injection experts across the nation opposed Florida’s decision to use Versed, an unknown drug for executions. Happ’s execution has given them even more momentum to oppose both the use of Versed as well as the state’s three-drug protocol.
A hearing on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Jacksonville will address these issues, after lawyers for death row prisoners across the state filed a complaint about the Florida Department of Correction’s “Midazolam Protocol.”
“It needs to be litigated unfortunately because that’s the only way to determine what is or is not constitutional,” said Stephen Harp, a professor at Florida International University College of Law in Miami.
Since Versed is primarily used as a preanesthetic drug in surgery, and the paralytic that follows would effectively mask any pain experienced by the third drug, experts warn that the protocol could induce an extreme amount of pain — which is against the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
Earlier coverage of the Florida lethal injection challenge begins at the link.
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