USA - Florida. Florida Supreme Court rules Midazolam is effective sedative and removes the stay on Knight's execution

Florida Supreme Court rules execution drug is effective sedative. The Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state's new lethal injection procedure, clearing the way for the execution of Thomas Knight who argued it was ineffective and caused needless suffering. Askari Abdullah Muhammad, formerly known as Thomas Knight, was due to be executed Dec. 3, but the state Supreme Court ordered a stay on November 18 (see) to hear arguments about the effectiveness of the drug, midazolam hydrochloride, which is used as an anesthetic prior to administering 2 other drugs that cause paralysis and then death. An 8th Circuit Court judge ruled earlier this month that midazolam is an FDA-approved drug routinely used as a pre-anesthetic sedative and said "the evidence was undisputed" that the correct dosage of the drug would render an inmate unconscious. The Supreme Court agreed today that the drug was effective and lifted the stay on Knight's execution. "Muhammad failed to establish that the current 3-drug lethal injection protocol using midazolam hydrochloride as the 1st drug in the procedure presents a serious risk of needless suffering or sufficient imminent danger in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment," the court wrote. The state has used the drug only twice and, in its first use, some movement of the prisoner caused opponents of capital punishment to claim he was suffering. Muhammad was convicted of the fatal stabbing of a death row prison guard, Richard Burke. He was also sentenced to die in 1974 for the abduction, robbery and murder of a Miami couple, Sydney and Lillian Gans.