The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the rehearing of an appeal from Alabama death row inmate Tommy Arthur, AL.com reports. Arthur’s execution is scheduled for May 25.
He has had seven previous execution delays over the pasted 15 years.
His appeal is based on the claim that Alabama’s method of lethal injection is unconstitutional. Arthur’s claim contends that the method of execution using the drug midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment that prisoners be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama is one of four states that uses midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug protocol. The other states are Florida, Virginia, and Oklahoma. His attorneys requested a rehearing, citing split opinions regarding lethal injection since his original rejection in February.
“The presence of two split decisions with opposed holdings from two different courts of appeals on an issue of national importance warrants review by this court,” says Suhana Han, Arthur’s attorney. “Mr. Arthur has proffered substantial evidence that his execution… will be torturous, but because he is in Alabama instead of Ohio that evidence will never be considered absent this court’s intervention.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent of the decision to stay the case, stated the Court should review Arthur’s appeal because of “significant evidence that Alabama’s current lethal-injection protocol will result in intolerable and needless agony.”
Arthur is held at the Holman Correctional Facility for the 1982 murder-for-hire killing of Troy Wicker.
Alabama Attorney General Steven T Marshall issued a statement in favor of the court’s decision stating, “The long wait for justice may be nearing an end.”
