Miami-Dade Judge Denies Fla. Execution Drug Challenge
MIAMI (CBS4) – The case of a Florida death row inmate's challenge over a new drug approved for use in the state's lethal injection procedure will now go to the Florida Supreme Court.
Wednesday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola denied Manuel Valle's motion to vacate the death penalty in his case after finding that Valle and his attorney failed to show that the new drug would violate the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment".
Judge Hogan ruled that use of pentobarbital in the execution cocktail, "does not create an objectively reasonable risk of suffering," and is unlikely to expose an inmate to pain and suffering.
Scola said the state's medical expert established that pentobarbital alone would be fatal in the planned doses.
Pentobarbital is used to render a person unconscious. It replaced an older drug, sodium thiopental, which is no longer manufactured. It has been used in other states but never in Florida.
The challenge was brought Manuel Valle, 61, convicted of killing Coral Gables police officer Luis Pena in 1978.
An expert who testified for Valle said pentobarbital was untested in executions and could subject inmates to intense pain.
Pentobarbital has been used in 18 executions around the country since Oklahoma first did so last year.
Like sodium thiopental before it, the drug is intended to render the inmate unconscious so that no pain will be felt when two other drugs that cause death are administered.
Valle's execution originally set for this week was delayed until Sept. 1 by the Florida Supreme Court to review his challenge.
Now the case goes back to the high court.
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