MIAMI (CBS4) – Sixty-one-year-old Manuel Valle is headed for a state execution chamber next month after the Florida Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state’s new drug used in lethal injections is constitutional.

Valle is set to be executed on September 6th at 6 p.m. for killing Coral Gables Police Officer Louis Pena in 1978.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that the state can use pentobarbital in the three-drug cocktail used in executions, according to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald.

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 Supreme Court’s ruling follows a Miami-Dade judge’s ruling that rejected Valle’s lawyers claims that the state’s usage of the drug was cruel and unusual punishment.

Valle had been set to die on August 2nd before the state Supreme Court ordered a hearing into the usage of pentobarbital.

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