Both Florida and Oklahoma are to execute the inmates with a three-drug mixture, including the sedative midazolam, considered by many to be unconstitutional because it causes pain and suffering, especially as death takes far longer than necessary, local media reported.
Florida will execute Johnny Shane Kormonday, 42, who was convicted of murdering a man during a robbery in Pensacola in 1993. Oklahoma is set to execute Charles Warner for the murder of his roommate's 11-month-old daughter in 1997 in Oklahoma City.
The Director of the Oklahoma's corrections department, Robert Patton, said that state authorities were forced to use midazolam because other options were not available.
The sedative midazolam was used in botched lethal injections in Oklahoma, Ohio, Florida and Arizona in 2014. The incidents came amid a nationwide debate over the lawfulness of the practice and whether it violates a clause in the US constitution that prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment."
Oklahoma plans to increase the amount of midazolam five times in accordance with a mixture used in more than 10 successful executions in Florida.
The death penalty is legal in 32 states. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 35 people were executed in 2014 and 39 in 2013.
Nearly 1,400 executions have been carried out in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 following a four-year suspension by the US Supreme Court. Florida has executed the fourth highest number, behind Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia. Nearly 400 people are currently on death row in Florida.
