The US Supreme Court [official website] lifted the stay of execution [order, PDF] granted last week by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] for Robert Melson late Tuesday. The brief order was issued by [AL report] Justice Clarence Thomas and noted that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer opposed the decision. Melson challenged the use of midazolam in the three-drug cocktail used in Alabama executions, arguing that it does not properly insensate prisoners to the pain of lethal injection. Melson was convicted of the murders of three fast-food restaurant employees during a robbery in 1994. The execution is set for 6 PM Thursday at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.

The death penalty continues to be a point of contention across the US. In May the Delaware House of Representatives passed a bill [JURIST report] that would reinstate the death penalty. In April the Texas Department of Criminal Justice sued [JURIST report] the Food and Drug Administration [official website] for banning a shipment of lethal injection drugs to prison officials. Earlier in April Amnesty International released an annual report [text, PDF] revealing the US to not be among the world’s top five executioners since 2006. However, in March the Mississippi house approved a bill [JURIST report] allowing firing squad executions. In March, Florida Governor Rick Scott [official website] signed a new bill [SB 280, materials] which stated that the death penalty may only be imposed [JURIST report] by a judge upon unanimous recommendation from the jury. In January the US Supreme Court refused to consider [JURIST report] a challenge to Alabama’s death penalty system. That same month, Ohio’s lethal injection protocol was deemed [JURIST report] unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.