On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Glossip v. Gross, a case challenging the use of midazolam in lethal injections. Midazolam was used as the first drug in three botched executions in 2014, including the execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma exactly one year ago. Prisoners on Oklahoma’s death row argued that midazolam should not be used in executions because it could not reliably anesthesize the prisoner to prevent him or her from experiencing extreme pain when the second and third drugs in Oklahoma’s execution protocol were injected. The Justices questioned both sides intensely, with the more conservative justices generally favoring the state’s arguments and the more liberal justices favoring the prisoners’ arguments. Justice Elena Kagan compared the effects of potassium chloride, the third execution drug, to being burned alive, saying, “Suppose that we said we’re going to burn you at the stake, but before we do, we’re going to use an anesthetic of completely unknown properties and unknown effects.” Conservatives on the Court criticized the case as a veiled attacked on the death penalty itself. The Court is expected to decide the case before the current term ends in June.

(E. Eckholm, “Supreme Court Hears Oklahoma Inmates’ Lethal Injection Case,” New York Times, April 29, 2015; R. Wolf, “Supreme Court’s conservative justices defend lethal injections,” USA Today, April 29, 2015.) Read the transcript of oral argument in Glossip v. Gross. See Lethal Injection and U.S. Supreme Court.

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