Hours after Missouri has carried out its fourth execution in as many months a House committee will hold a hearing on a bill that would have the Department of Corrections bringing its proposed execution protocol to a legislative committee for review.

Representative Eric Burlison (R-Springfield)

Representative Eric Burlison (R-Springfield)

Springfield representative Eric Burlison proposes having the Department’s protocol be reviewed by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. Currently the Department is exempt from that committee’s review.

The Department’s protocol and changes made to it have been at the center of debate in recent months, particularly by lawyers for the four condemned inmates who have been executed in November, December, January and February. They have said that because it keeps the maker of the drug to be used secret, and because the protocol has been changed several times in the past year, they are at an unfair disadvantage to challenge whether those men will suffer painful deaths that would violate their constitutional rights.

That hearing is today at noon in the House Judiciary Committee, and will take place in the basement of the Capitol.