A condemned Missouri inmate will get another hearing on his contention that Missouri’s method of execution violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Michael Taylor barely escaped execution earlier this year when a federal district judge in Kansas City rejected his claim a day before Taylor was to have been put to death by lethal injection. The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis stopped the execution and has granted Taylor another hearing on his contention that the state’s method of lethal injection is flawed. The court acted a day after the US Supreme Court heard similar arguments in a Florida case, in which the inmate argued that the three-drug method used paralyzes the condemned prisoner, but doesn’t render him unconscious, resulting in extreme pain prior to death.
