Drug clear for use in death penalty

The US Supreme Court has upheld the use of a controversial drug in lethal-injection executions, even as two dissenting justices said for the first time they think it is “highly likely” that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional.

Trading sharp words on their last day together until autumn, the justices voted 5-4 in a case from Oklahoma that the sedative midazolam can be used in executions without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The drug was used in executions in Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma in 2014 that took longer than usual and raised concerns that it did not perform its intended task of putting inmates into a coma-like sleep.