"The plaintiff inmates have fallen well short of clearing the bar set by the Supreme Court," US Judge Stephen Friot said in the court document. "Consequently, the Eighth Amendment, as construed and applied by the Supreme Court in its lethal injection cases, does not stand in the way of execution of these Oklahoma inmates under Chart D of the Oklahoma lethal injection protocol."
The ruling reportedly paves the way for the state of Oklahoma to execute more than two dozen death row inmates in Oklahoma who challenged the use of lethal injection.
Twenty-eight death row inmates in Oklahoma argued that the use of midazolam is not adequate enough to ensure inmates do not feel pain during the execution, and may cause more suffering.