[JURIST] The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals [official website] on Wednesday set the execution [Oklahoma execution policy, PDF] dates of three inmates who had previously challenged the use of the drug that will be used in their lethal injections. This is the highest criminal court in Oklahoma. Although the inmates had argued that the use of the drug, midazolam, violates the “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibition of the Eighth Amendment [text PDF] as it may subject them to pain and suffering by not bringing them to a fully unconscious state, the US Supreme Court [official website], in a 5-4 decision last month [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], ruled that midazolam may be used un executions without violating the Constitution. Richard Eugene Glossip is set to be executed [Oklahoman report] on September 16; Benjamin Robert Cole on October 7; and John Marion Grant on October 28.

Use of the death penalty [JURIST news archive] has been a controversial issue throughout the US and internationally. In May, Nebraska overrode Governor Pete Ricketts’s [JURIST report] veto on repealing the death penalty. In April, the Tennessee Supreme Court [official website] had postponed the execution [JURIST report] of four inmates on death row while it determines whether current protocols are constitutional – effectively halting all executions in the state. Also in April the Delaware Senate voted to repeal the death penalty [JURIST report], but the legislation includes an exemption for the 15 inmates currently on Delaware’s death row. In March Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill [JURIST report] to restore the firing squad as a method of execution, making Utah one of the only states with that option. Oklahoma became the epicenter [JURIST report] of the lethal injection drug debate last year after the death of Clayton Lockett, a death row inmate who died of an apparent attack minutes after doctors called off a failed attempt to execute him.