[JURIST] Alabama and 12 other states filed an amicus brief [text, PDF; press release] with the US Supreme Court [official website] on Wednesday in support of the three-drug combination being used in Oklahoma for executions. Lethal injection executions in many states have been put on hold until the Supreme Court considers Glossip v. Gross [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], a case determining whether Oklahoma’s three-drug method of lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment [text] prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The brief calls on the Supreme Court “to close the litigation floodgates” and affirm the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol. Other states to join Alabama in the brief are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada,Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

The controversy [JURIST op-ed] surrounding the contents of lethal injection drugs and execution protocol in the US has been a mainstream issue in politics and in courts around the US. Last month more than a dozen former state attorneys general asked [JURIST report] the Supreme Court to find Oklahoma’s use of the three-drug execution cocktail unconstitutional. In January Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction [official website] announced [JURIST report] that it is revising its execution protocol to no longer use the two-drug combination that caused the troubling 26-minute execution of Dennis McGuire last year. Last April Oklahoma’s execution by lethal injection of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett went awry [JURIST report]. According to witnesses, 13 minutes after being injected with the drug cocktail, the inmate appeared to regain consciousness and experience pain. Lockett died of a heart attack 27 minutes after state officials called off the execution. Use of the three-drug cocktail has also led to problematic executions in Ohio and Arizona.