ATLANTA (CN) — A panel for the 11th Circuit on Thursday upheld a judge’s ruling against a death row inmate who sought an execution by a firing squad instead of lethal injection.
The decision paves the way for the state’s long-awaited execution of Michael Wade Nance, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death over 25 years ago.
In a unanimous opinion, the circuit judges agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion that Nance failed to prove lethal injection was likely to cause him an unconstitutional level of pain or discomfort.
“Medical professionals obtained peripheral access to Nance’s veins three times less than two and a half years before the trial, and the medical records reveal no complications in either obtaining intravenous access or delivering a steady flow of fluids into his veins,” Chief U.S. Circuit Judge William Pryor wrote.
During a five-day bench trial in May 2024, the prison officials’ medical expert examined Nance’s veins the morning of the bench trial and testified that access would not be difficult.
A registered nurse, who sedated Nance for a colonoscopy in February 2022, stated that intravenous “access was established” in Nance’s left arm “with a 20 or 22 gauge needle and a catheter,” and there was no “redness, swelling or pain at the injection site.” Additionally, a doctor who reviewed magnetic resonance records of Nance’s February 2023 brain scan testified that the contrast agent injected intravenously was delivered without issue.
In his appeal, Nance argued the trial court committed error by allowing members of the assigned execution team to testify remotely and anonymously.
But the 11th Circuit noted in its opinion that under the Georgia Secrecy Act, the “identifying information of any person or entity who participates in or administers the execution of a death sentence … shall be confidential.”
Pryor, who was joined by Donald Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Judges Kevin Newsom and Barbara Lagoa, also determined the lower court was not required to decide whether Nance established a readily available and feasible alternative method of execution.
As an alternative to lethal injection, Nance proposed death by firing squad — a method currently approved by four other states that permit the death penalty, but not Georgia.
“If the planned method does not present a substantial risk of serious harm, the officials may use it regardless of the proposed alternatives,” Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote.
Nance argued that execution by firing squad provided a “feasible and readily implemented” alternative, and because it was “both swift and virtually painless,” lethal injection would entail a “cruel superaddition of terror and pain.”
In 1993, Nance killed Gabor Balogh by shooting him at point-blank range while stealing his car to flee a bank robbery. Four years later, a jury found Nance guilty of capital murder, and a trial court sentenced him to death. This was when electrocution was still the state’s primary method of execution.
He sued the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections and a prison warden in 2020, claiming his execution by lethal injection would violate the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and 14th Amendments.
In his complaint, Nance said his veins were so severely compromised that they were likely to blow and cause him to suffer “excruciating pain” during the execution. He also asserted that due to his longtime use of a prescription drug for back pain, the sedative used in the state’s lethal injection protocol may be less effective and fail to “render him unconscious and insensate.”
The 11th Circuit initially rejected Nance’s suit as a second or successive habeas petition, but the Supreme Court reversed in a 5-4 decision that allowed his suit to proceed. On remand, the circuit judges found Nance’s as-applied claims were timely.
Source: courthousenews.com, Megan Butler, March 19, 2026
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