LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A federal judge has upheld Arkansas’ execution
process, rejecting death row inmates’ claims that the use of a sedative amounts
to cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker on Monday
ruled the state’s use of midazolam in lethal injections as constitutional and
dismissed claims that less painful methods of execution are available. Attorneys
for the inmates have said those alternatives include a firing squad and a
barbiturate commonly used in physician assisted suicide. Arkansas doesn’t have
any executions scheduled, and its supply of lethal injection drugs has expired.
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