Inmate's suit calls lethal injection cruel

A hearing on Timothy Johnston's suit, filed more than a year ago, will be held just days before his scheduled execution.

ST. LOUIS -- Even as the state prepares to execute Timothy Johnston next week for killing his wife, a lawsuit questioning the method of execution remains unresolved.

The suit on behalf of Johnston, 44, claims Missouri's three-drug method of lethal injection violates his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. It was filed more than a year ago in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, and the court denied the state's motion to dismiss it as frivolous.

Johnston's attorney, Chris McGraugh of St. Louis, is seeking a temporary injunction to halt the execution scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Aug. 31 at the prison in Bonne Terre, at least until the lawsuit is decided. A hearing on the injunction is Friday.

"The court has said we're entitled to move through the system with this lawsuit," McGraugh said Wednesday. "Give us our day in court. That's all we're asking for."

A spokesman for Gov. Matt Blunt declined comment. Attorney General Jay Nixon, whose office is representing the state, said the lawsuit is an effort to "delay the inevitable."

Johnston was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1989 murder of his wife.

Missouri has executed 61 inmates, all by injection, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1989.

Other lawsuits nationally have claimed lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Johnston's lawsuit questions the way Missouri does it.

In Missouri, the condemned inmate lies on a gurney in a plain white room, viewed by witnesses from his family, the victim's family and the state -- typically media and perhaps police officers or prosecutors involved in the case.

From another room, unseen by observers, a Department of Corrections employee is directed to begin the process. Through an IV tube running from the unseen room to the execution chamber, the inmate is injected first with sodium pentothal, which renders him unconscious.

About a minute later, panchromium bromide, which stops the respiratory system, is administered. Finally, usually after another minute, potassium chloride, which stops the heart, is injected.

Typically, the inmate is declared dead about three minutes after the process begins, though a few of the executions have taken longer.

But the lawsuit claims there is no guarantee that the first drug always works.

"What we're saying is that if you don't administer the first drug right, what happens when the second one gets in you is it paralyzes you with no way to indicate to anyone that you're being suffocated," McGaugh said.

The lawsuit also questions why Corrections Department staffers, and not medical personnel, administer the injections.

Corrections Department spokesman John Fougere declined to discuss details of the process, citing safety and security reasons. He said medical staff members are present, but declined to say what role they play.