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Lethal Injection Procedure Allowed

2015

The U.S. Supreme Court decides, 5-4, in Glossip v. Gross against Oklahoma death-row inmates who said that use of a sedative called midazolam resulted in executions that violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Botched executions had resulted in national headlines. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, says that the Oklahoma inmates did not meet their burden of identifying a “known and available alternative method of execution.”