BONNE TERRE, Mo. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday halted the execution of a Missouri inmate with a rare medical condition who challenged the state’s refusal to disclose the source of its lethal injection drug.
The justices said a lower federal court needs to take another look at the case of Russell Bucklew, whose execution would have been the nation’s first since last month’s botched execution in Oklahoma.
Bucklew had been scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for the 1996 killing of a man during a violent crime spree, but Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito blocked the execution late Tuesday while the full court considered the matter.
By law, Missouri has a 24-hour window to carry out a scheduled execution, and the ruling means the state Supreme Court will have to set a new execution date if it’s to carry out the punishment.
Minutes after the Supreme Court’s ruling, witnesses who were to have witnessed Bucklew’s execution on the state’s behalf were released.
Eric Slusher, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, confirmed that no further litigation was expected Wednesday.
Bucklew, 46, suffers from a rare congenital condition, cavernous hemangioma, that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels, as well as tumors in his nose and throat.
His attorneys say this and the secrecy surrounding the state’s lethal injection drug make for an unacceptably high chance of something going wrong during his execution.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lindsay Runnels, an attorney for Bucklew, lauded the ruling.
“Today’s stay of execution will give the lower federal courts time to consider Mr. Bucklew’s claim that his execution would violate his rights under the Eighth Amendment to be free from cruel and unusual punishment,” she said in an e-mail.
The next scheduled executions in the U.S. are on June 18 — in Missouri, Florida and Pennsylvania, although the Pennsylvania execution probably will be delayed by appeals.
During Oklahoma’s April 29 execution, inmate Clayton Lockett’s vein collapsed, and he writhed on the gurney before eventually dying of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after the start of a procedure.
European companies opposed to capital punishment cut off supplies of certain execution drugs, leading Missouri and other states to turn to U.S. sources. The states refuse to identify the sources of their execution drugs, saying secrecy is necessary to protect the sources from possible retaliation by death penalty opponents.
Death penalty opponents say the secrecy makes it impossible to ensure that the drugs couldn’t cause an inmate to endure an agonizing death that rises to the level of unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
