In her ruling, Bonnyman cited experts who testified at trial that the drug is effectively used in other states.
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The court documents state: “Thus, ironically, Plaintiffs ultimately do not seek to prevent the administration of the death penalty, but rather seek its administration in what they term to be a more humane and painless fashion”.
A District Court judge is scheduled to hear arguments over the constitutionality of Montana’s method of lethal injection. While much of the focus of this case has been on the inmates, we should not forget the victims and the heartache suffered by their families.
Bonnyman said a group of condemned inmates and their attorneys did not prove during trial that the protocol creates risk of cruel and unusual harm, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court chose to cease all executions until a final decision on the matter was reached.
Tennessee courts aren’t the only ones hearing cases regarding lethal injections. Tennessee’s protocol, established in 2013, calls for the use of a single lethal-injection drug, compounded pentobarbital.
This is Bonneyman’s second ruling on Tennessee’s capital punishment laws: In 2010, she ruled that Tennessee’s previous execution protocol of using three drugs for lethal injection was unconstitutional, as it allowed “for death by suffocation while conscious”.
“In recent years, however, manufacturers of the anesthesia drug have refused to provide it for executions on moral, ethical and – in some cases – public relations grounds”.
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Midazolam, pentobarbital and other barbiturates or sedatives are used to render inmates unconscious as part of various state approaches to killing people sentenced to death.
