Appeals court tosses order blocking Mississippi executions

(AP) — An appeals court Wednesday upheld Mississippi's method of lethal injection, rejecting arguments from death row inmates who opposed the state's plan to use drugs not specifically approved by state law.

The opinion by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod rejected arguments by death row prisoners that Mississippi can't execute them because the state no longer will be using the particular class of drugs required by state law.

"Mississippi's statutory requirements and the associated lethal injection protocol are not 'atypical ... in relation to the ordinary' in comparison with other states' execution protocols," Elrod wrote, noting the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional Oklahoma's plan to use the drugs that Mississippi now plans to use.

Prisoners claimed they faced risk of excruciating pain and torture during an execution, and that such pain violates the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Since the court overruled only a preliminary injunction, Wingate could also still decide the case in favor of the prisoners.