Mississippi high court rejects claims on lethal injection

JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court has rejected claims that corrections officials failed to properly publicize as required by law its switch to a new lethal injection drug.

The lawsuit by two anti-death penalty organizations was filed last year on behalf of three inmates. Two of the three have been executed.

Mississippians Educating for Smart Justice and Mississippi Cure Inc. sued the state, hoping to stop the executions because the Mississippi Department of Corrections switched to a different lethal injection drug. They said corrections officials failed to properly publicize the change as required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

The 2003 law requires state agencies to notify the public of proposed rule and regulation changes. The law gives citizens the right to offer opinions on proposed changes to rules and regulations, ask for hearings and request official opinions from state agencies.

In 2011, Hinds County Circuit Judge Bill Gowan rejected the challenge.

"The protocol is an internal policy concerning lethal injections and the manner in which executions are carried out and is therefore not subject to the notice and comment requirements of the MAPL," Justice Randy Pierce wrote in Thursday's unanimous decision.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of inmates Benny Joe Stevens, Rodney Gray and Robert Simon Jr. Stevens was executed May 10. 2011; Gray was executed May 17, 2011. Simon has appeals pending in federal court.

The MDOC said in April 2011 that it would switch to a different drug, pentobarbital, for the state's next execution because of a nationwide shortage of one drug it has used in the past.

Mississippi has used a three-drug mixture for its lethal injections for many years. Last year, one of the drugs Mississippi had used in the process, sodium thiopental, became unavailable when its European supplier bowed to pressure from death penalty opponents and stopped making it. No other vendor could be found, so the drug was replaced by pentobarbital.

Source: Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 24, 2012