Court upholds Arkansas’ use of sedative in executions

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Arkansas' use of the sedative midazolam in its lethal injections.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court judge's ruling upholding the state's execution process. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in 2020 ruled that the state's use of midazolam in injections is constitutional and dismissed claims that less painful methods of execution are available.

"With no scientific consensus and a paucity of reliable scientific evidence concerning the effect of large doses of midazolam on humans, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the prisoners failed to demonstrate that the Arkansas execution protocol is sure or very likely to cause severe pain," the appeals panel said in its ruling.

The ruling comes more than five years since Arkansas raced to execute eight inmates over 11 days before its batch of midazolam expired. The state ultimately put four men to death after courts halted the other four executions.

The state has not executed any inmates since 2017 and doesn't have any executions scheduled. The state's supply of the three drugs used in its execution process has expired and hasn't been replaced. Arkansas has 30 inmates on death row.

"It is past time that justice be carried out in these cases of defendants killing innocent people, and the Eighth Circuit's decision reaffirms that Arkansas' execution protocol is constitutional," Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, said in a statement. "It is time to move forward."

An attorney for the death row inmates challenging the process did not have an immediate comment on the ruling.

The inmates' case focused on midazolam, which critics have said doesn't render inmates fully unconscious before other lethal injection drugs are administered. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld midazolam's use in executions in 2015, but its use still prompts legal challenges.