JACKSON, Miss. — How can you be sure the execution drugs work properly? That is the question lawyers for Mississippi death row inmates are asking the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) in a new lawsuit filed Friday.
The lawsuit argues that the drugs used in lethal injections could be contaminated, counterfeit, expired, or not potent enough to work property since they are locally mixed and not from a primary manufacture. Lawyers assert that if the drugs to not work properly, inmates would be subjected to excruciating pain, resulting in the MDOC being in violation of the eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states that cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted.
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps says the allegations against MDOC are not true.
“I have done twenty-one executions and saw them with the drugs they are complaining about, and I find no cruel or unusual punishment. In fact, I find them to be humane, particularly from when we used to do executions in the gas chamber,” said Epps.
Lawyers are asking a judge to halt all executions until the Department of Corrections can prove otherwise.
