The first drug, midazolam, is supposed to sedate inmates so they wonвЂ™t feel the effects of the rocuronium bromide, a paralytic, and the potassium chloride, which stops the heart. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.ДЄlabamaвЂ™s current death penalty process uses a three-drug injection lethal cocktail to carry out executions: 500 milligrams of midazolam, 600 milligrams of rocuronium bromide and 240 'milliequivalents' of potassium chloride. This litigation began in 2011 when attorney Suhana Han filed suit against Jefferson Dunn, ADOC Commissioner Walter Myers, warden of Holman Correctional Facility and others on behalf of Thomas Arthur, a death row inmate who was convicted in 1982 in a murder-for-hire plot.ДЄ final hearing for this litigation began on Tuesday in U.S. Specifically, he said the check for consciousness does not ensure condemned inmates wonвЂ™t feel the sensation of being buried alive or burned from the inside as a result of the drugs.Д«ut the court is primarily trying to determine if the consciousness checks are performed at all. Alan Kaye, chair of Louisiana State University's Department of Anesthesiology,В testified Wednesday that the вЂњconsciousness checkвЂќ used by the Alabama Department of Corrections during lethal injections is inadequate. The Supreme Court will likely argue the case in April with a decision expected in June, according to the Associated Press.In a lawsuit challenging AlabamaвЂ™s death penalty protocol, Dr. The question of what will replace the current drugs is difficult for years now, the country has experienced a shortage of traditional lethal injection drugs, like the sedative Nembutal. Ohio has also retired midazolam from its two-drug process. In December, Arizona's Department of Corrections changed its two-drug cocktail -В midazolam and the painkillerВ hydromorphon - after an inmate remained alive for nearly two hours after the injection. Florida is the only other state to currently use midalozam as the first of a three-drug injection. But midazolam is a benzodiazepine that has no pain-relieving properties and, according to the petition, is ineffectual inВ maintaining longterm unconsciousness. Those three drugs wereВ sodium thiopental (an anasthetic), pancuronium bromide (a paralytic) and potassium chloride, which ultimately stops the heart. Rees that a three-drug execution was constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008's Kentucky's Baze vs. The petition argues for the discontinued use of the midazolam, the sedative currently in place as the first drug in Oklahoma's three-drug execution cocktail. The fumbled execution, in which death row inmateВ Charles Warner remained alive for nearly an hour after the injection was administered, has prompted Warner's lawyers and three other Oklahoma prisoners to petition the Supreme Court to intervene. Now, the Supreme Court has said it will review the state's injection procedure to determine if it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, Buzzfeed reports. Following a botched lethal injection in April,В Oklahoma has recently been under scrutiny for its execution process.

Lethal injection process