[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA

[Rick Halperin]

June 8



ALBAMA:

Temporary stay granted for death row inmate Robert Melson


The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily halted the death of an Alabama inmate as 
it reviews his request to block his execution over questions regarding a 
sedative’s effectiveness.

Justices issued the temporary stay Thursday evening about 15 minutes before 
46-year-old Robert Bryant Melson was scheduled to be executed by lethal 
injection.

Melson was convicted of killing three people during a 1994 robbery of a fast 
food restaurant.

Melson’s attorneys argued that Alabama plans to use an ineffective sedative 
that will not render Melson unconscious before other drugs stop his lungs and 
heart. They cited the December execution in which an Alabama man coughed and 
heaved for 13 minutes.

His attorneys argued the execution showed “the horrific results of using 
midazolam in a way it was never intended _ as an anesthetic.”

The Alabama attorney general’s office had asked for the execution to proceed 
arguing the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld midazolam’s use and allowed other 
executions to proceed using it. Alabama has executed three inmates using 
midazolam.

(source: Associated Press)