A federal appeals court took up an issue today with broad implications for how executions will be carried out nationwide: whether Virginia's method of lethal injection induces an agonizing death.

A federal appeals court took up an issue today with broad implications for how executions will be carried out nationwide: whether Virginia's method of lethal injection induces an agonizing death. The debate before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit came in the case of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott Emmett. His lawyers are challenging the state's lethal injection procedures, saying that prisoners are not fully anesthetized before being administered drugs that can cause excruciating pain. Lawyers said it was the first time an appeals court has debated lethal injection since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the 3-drug protocol most commonly used in executions by states and the federal government is not cruel and unusual punishment. Similar hearings are expected across the country, exploring how the court's decision will be carried out. Last year, a federal judge upheld Virginia's method before the Supreme Court made its ruling. Emmett's attorneys are asking the 3-judge 4th Circuit panel to send his case back to the judge for further review. Attorneys for Emmett, who fatally bludgeoned John Fenton Langley, a co-worker, in 2001, said that Virginia gives inmates too small a dose of a drug that renders them unconscious, and then doesn't give it time to take effect before administering drugs that induce paralysis and death. (see also Oct. 17, 2007 and April 2, 2008)