If the Supreme Court agrees the use of midazolam, in the Oklahoma’s three drug lethal injection system constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, it will mark the first time that the Court has held that a particular method of execution is unconstitutional. Deborah Denno discusses its implications with Legal Broadcast Network.
The reports of botched executions in recent years have focused more attention on the means of carrying out the execution procedure. Professor Denno points out that there were four botched executions at the start of 2014, and especially the case of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. He was injected with midazolam but didn’t die. The execution was called off, but Lockett died afterward. That execution got a great deal of attention, including some from President Obama.
Read the entire Legal Broadcast Network article here.