Below are sum­maries from two U.S. District Court deci­sions regard­ing prob­lems with lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures in Arkansas and Missouri. The court in Arkansas grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for Don Davis to allow fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions into the lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures. In Missouri, in Michael Taylor’s case, the District judge put all exe­cu­tions in the state on hold until changes are made in the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols.

Nooner v. Norris, No. 5:06CV00110 SWW
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas
Ordered: June 26, 2006

Terrick Nooner and Don Davis, two Arkansas death-row inmates, brought a civ­il action seek­ing a dec­la­ra­tion that the pro­to­col for car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion in Arkansas vio­lat­ed the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and an injunc­tion to enjoin the state from car­ry­ing out future exe­cu­tions in accor­dance with the pro­to­col. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas grant­ed the motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion and stayed the exe­cu­tion of Davis.

Arkansas’ lethal injec­tion statute gives the Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction the respon­si­bil­i­ty to deter­mine which sub­stances should be admin­is­tered and what kinds of pro­ce­dures should be used in any exe­cu­tion. Davis claimed that the State’s pro­to­col cre­ates a sub­stan­tial risk that the first drug might still allow him to expe­ri­ence intense pain and agony when the oth­er two chem­i­cals are admin­is­tered.

The District Court con­sid­ered Davis’ med­ical expert tes­ti­mo­ny and eye­wit­ness accounts of Arkansas exe­cu­tions, which sug­gest­ed that inmates remained con­scious dur­ing their exe­cu­tions. Applying a strong equi­table pre­sump­tion against the grant of a stay, the court found that Davis had shown that he was ​“per­son­al­ly under a threat of irrepara­ble harm.” The court also found that an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on Davis’ claims would serve the ​“pub­lic inter­est in the humane and con­sti­tu­tion­al appli­ca­tion of the State’s lethal injec­tion statute.”


Taylor v. Crawford, No. 05 – 4173-CV-C-FJG
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri

Ordered: June 26, 2006

Michael Taylor had sought a declara­to­ry judg­ment that Missouri’s method of exe­cu­tion vio­lates the Eighth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. He appealed the District Court’s January 31, 2006 Order deny­ing him relief, argu­ing that he did not have suf­fi­cient time to present his argu­ments to the court. The Eighth Circuit remand­ed the case to the District Court to recon­vene the hear­ing. The court amend­ed its pre­vi­ous order of January 31, 2006 and ordered the Missouri Department of Corrections to pre­pare a writ­ten pro­to­col for the imple­men­ta­tion of lethal injec­tions. The court stayed all exe­cu­tions in Missouri pend­ing approval of the pro­to­col.

The court not­ed that the cru­el­ty against which the Constitution pro­tects a con­vict­ed man is cru­el­ty ​“inher­ent in the method of pun­ish­ment, not the nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing involved in any method employed to extin­guish life humane­ly” (quot­ing Louisana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber (1947)).

The court found many prob­lems with the way exe­cu­tions are car­ried out in Missouri after review­ing the chem­i­cal dis­pen­sary logs, the video­tape of the exe­cu­tion cham­ber, and the inter­roga­to­ries sub­mit­ted to state offi­cials. For exam­ple, the pro­to­col is not car­ried out con­sis­tent­ly and is sub­ject to change because there was no writ­ten pro­to­col describ­ing the kinds of drugs, the amounts, and the meth­ods of admin­is­ter­ing the drugs for the exe­cu­tions. The court con­clud­ed that Missouri’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure sub­jects con­demned inmates to an unnec­es­sary risk that they will be sub­ject to uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pain and suf­fer­ing when the lethal injec­tion drugs are admin­is­tered.

Read the District Court’s Order.
See DPIC’s Lethal Injection page, includ­ing exe­cu­tions stayed and car­ried out in recent months. See also Methods of Execution.

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