Judge says state’s use of lethal injection OK

A judge Friday upheld the state’s procedure for executing prisoners by lethal injection.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham ruled the state’s execution protocol is not “cruel” under the state constitution. The decision rejected an appeal filed by three Washington State Penitentiary inmates facing the death penalty.

Attorneys for the inmates, Darold Ray Stenson, Cal Coburn Brown and Jonathan Gentry, argued Washington state’s execution method could allow an inmate to be partially conscious when the drugs to stop his heart and breathing are injected.

The plaintiffs argued that if that happened, the condemned person could be subjected to suffocation and excruciating pain.

During a four-day trial in June, attorneys for the state Department of Corrections argued Washington’s procedure passes constitutional tests because it is substantially similar to a Kentucky system upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his ruling, Wickham said attorneys for the inmates “presented no evidence that (the state) intended to impose punishment that was ‘cruel.’ ”

The state’s lethal injection procedure “although not fail-safe, appears to have been designed to administer the death penalty in a way that is humane for both the inmate and the observers,” Wickham wrote. It was not immediately clear Friday whether attorneys for the inmates would appeal Wickham’s decision. No new execution dates have been set for any of the three.

Stenson had been scheduled to die in December. His execution was halted pending the outcome of appeals filed in Wickham’s court and in Clallam County Superior Court.

Coburn was only hours away from execution on May 12 when his execution was halted by the state Supreme Court. In a split decision, justices ruled to allow him to join Stenson’s and Gentry’s appeal of the lethal injection procedure.