US Supreme Court backs execution drug

The US Supreme Court has upheld the use of a controversial drug used in executions, ruling that it does not violate a ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In the case, called Glossip vs. Gross, three inmates in an Oklahoma prison argued that the midazolam sedative could not achieve the level of unconsciousness required for surgery and that excruciating pain and suffering was likely. They argued that this went against the Eight Amendment of the US Constitution which forbids “cruel and unusual punishments”.

However the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, the inmates had “failed to identify a known an available alternative method of execution that entails a lesser risk of pain”.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the four dissenters, said that the ruling left the inmates “exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake”.

Justice Stephen Breyer, another dissenter, said that the time was right for the Court to debate whether the death penalty itself violates the US Constitution.

However, Justice Alito dismissed the dissenting judges, claiming that they had resorted to “outlandish rhetoric” that revealed the weakness of their legal arguments.

Several US states started using midazolam as an execution drug after European manufacturers stopped supplying sodium thiopental to US prisons due to the imposition of an EU ban on the sale of products used in lethal injections.

This shortage led to some of the 32 US states that allow capital punishment to reintroduce other controversial execution methods, such as the gas chamber and firing squad.