Testimony in a federal lawsuit over Arkansas’s use of the sedative midazolam in lethal injections shifted Wednesday from witnesses of recent executions to expert testimony. Attorneys for a group of death row inmates are trying to establish that the execution process inflicts unconstitutional pain and suffering.
Craig W. Stevens, a professor of pharmacology at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa, said that midazolam, which is the first of three drugs used, would not effectively keep inmates from feeling the following drugs, which stop the heart and paralyze the muscles.