Injection Worries Halt Executions

On Monday, a bitterly divided Oklahoma Supreme Court issued stays of execution for two death-row inmates over concerns about the source of the state’s lethal injection drug. By a vote of five to four, the judges halted the executions because of worries about the state’s newly legalized combination of five drugs. The lethal cocktail was approved by legislators on March 21, but the state has never before used the drug combination. The stay is temporary and could travel through the courts. In previous similar cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stop executions over lethal-injection source concerns.