U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger has ruled that Tennessee’s new lethal injection procedures are cruel and unusual, a decision that halts executions in the state. Trauger stated that Tennessee’s new lethal injection protocols, released in April 2007, present “a substantial risk of unnecessary pain” and violate death row inmate Edward Jerome Harbison’s constitutional protections under the Eighth Amendment. She added that the protocols do not adequately ensure that inmates are properly anesthetized during lethal injections, a problem that could “result in a terrifying, excruciating death.” The decision noted that State Department of Corrections Commissioner George Little adopted the new guidelines despite having knowledge about the remaining risks of excessive pain for inmates.

Harbison was scheduled to be executed on September 26 for a 1983 murder. Though Trauger did not issue a stay or throw out the death sentence for Harbison, who has exhausted his appeals, the decision does halt executions in the state until the state adopts a constitutional method of execution. Last week, Tennessee executed Daryl Holton by electrocution, the first execution using this method since 1960.

(Associated Press, September 19, 1007). See Lethal Injections.