US Supreme Court asked to give green light to Oklahoma executions

The fate of Death Row inmates in Oklahoma was in the hands of the US Supreme Court on Thursday after a lower court temporarily halted executions in the plains state.

John Grant, 60, was scheduled to be put to death at 4:00 pm Central Time (2100 GMT) on Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the 1998 murder of a prison cafeteria worker.

A federal appeals court stayed Grant's execution on Wednesday over a challenge to the lethal cocktail used to put inmates to death in Oklahoma.

The court also stayed the execution of another Death Row inmate in Oklahoma, Julius Jones, a 41-year-old African-American man scheduled to be put to death on November 18 for the 1999 shooting of a white businessman.

Jones has consistently proclaimed his innocence and his case has attracted the attention of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Attorneys for Grant and Jones have argued that use of the sedative midazolam in the lethal drug cocktail would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, violating their Eighth Amendment rights.

Midazolam was identified as a potential factor in a series of botched executions in Oklahoma, the last of which was carried out in 2015.

A lawsuit challenging Oklahoma's lethal injection protocols is scheduled to go to trial in February 2022 and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals put the executions of Grant and Jones on hold pending a ruling in the case.

The Oklahoma attorney general's office asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections insisted that the drug cocktail is "humane and effective."

Dale Baich, an attorney for the Death Row plaintiffs, said the 10th Circuit "did the right thing by blocking Mr. Grant's execution."

Baich said it should "prevent the State from carrying out executions until the federal district court addresses the 'credible expert criticism' it identified in Oklahoma's execution procedures."

Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer executed in Oklahoma in April 2014, took more than 40 minutes to die after a drug was injected into muscle tissue instead of his bloodstream.

The wrong drug was used in the execution of Charles Warner the following year and another execution was called off at the last minute when it was discovered that the wrong drug was to have been used again.