Free Republic

An appellate court is paving the way for executions of death row inmates, including two from East Tennessee. The Tennessee Court of Appeals last week issued an opinion affirming the decision of Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman to uphold a new procedure set by the state Department of Correction to try to ensure a death row inmate is unconscious before fatal drugs are administered under the state's three-drug lethal injection process. "Plaintiffs have simply failed to carry their heavy burden to demonstrate that the lethal injection protocol as revised in November 2010 constitutes wanton exposure to an objectively intolerable risk...