Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard from lawyers for three Oklahoma death row inmates who claimed that the state’s untested drug cocktail could cause their clients to feel unconstitutional pain and suffering during their executions, the New York Times’ Erik Eckholm reported. The conservatives on the court were unconvinced by the lawyers’ claims that the sedative midazolam, used in Oklahoma executions last year, was incapable of producing the state of unconsciousness required for an execution to pass constitutional muster.

Lethal injection debate over what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment took an odd turn