Oklahoma | Death Row Prisoners With Tentative Execution Dates Challenge State’s ‘Medical Experimentation’
In a new motion filed Monday in the Western District Court of Oklahoma, prisoners who have tentative execution dates starting this fall are asking the court to reconsider its position on ‘medical experimentation.’ Capital punishment in Oklahoma has been on hiatus after a series of botched executions threw drug protocols into question. On Aug. 11, a ruling by a federal judge in Oklahoma City allowed that a lawsuit challenging those lethal injection protocols can proceed to trial. In the same ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot wrote during that trial, counselors should be prepared to show evidence on the efficacy of midazolam, a drug involved in the botched executions. Friot wrote that evidence may be collected from some of the executions of the prisoners involved in the suit. “As a word to the wise, the parties would be well advised to be prepared, at trial, to present evidence as to the actual track record of midazolam as used in executions over the last few years,” Friot wrote....