Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the use of a three-drug lethal injection protocol that includes midazolam, a chemical paralytic, and potassium chloride when a single-drug pentobarbital alternative is available

No question identified. : In that opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi from 5 p.m. Central on June 20, 2025, in Jordan, et al. v. Cain, et al., No. 15-295, 2025 WL 1728266 (S.D. Miss. June 20, 2025). The District Court haddenied Petitioner’s motion for preliminary injunction, which sought an injunction forbidding Respondents from executing Petitioner using a three-drug lethal injection protocol consisting of the successive injections of midazolam, a chemical paralytic, and potassium chloride. Petitioner respectfully requests that this Court issue a stay of execution to permit the consideration and disposition of that petition for certiorari. L Procedural Background Petitioner and another Mississippi death-sentenced prisoner filed this civil action on April 16, 2015, seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief forbidding Respondents (the Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, the Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Mississippi State Executioner, and Unknown Executioners, all in their official capacities) from executing them with a three-drug lethal injection protocol that included a chemical paralytic and potassium chloride as the second and third drugs. Petitioner submitted that a protocol using a lethal dose of one drug—a barbiturate capable of producing death—was a known, available alternative method that would reduce or eliminate the risks associated with the second and third drugs of Respondents’ three-drug protocol. On September 28, 2015, Petitioner filed a First Amended Complaint, based on Respondents’ July 2015 amendment of their protocol to permit the use of midazolam as the first drug, followed by the chemical paralytic and then potassium chloride. Petitioner’s challenge to Mississippi’s protocol, as well as his proffered alternative, have remained the same since that time. Petitioner and the other plaintiffs (including three engaged in discovery and motions practice, which was interrupted by an administrative stay during the pendency of this Court’s consideration of Bucklew v. Precythe,! and again during the pandemic. Discovery has been painstaking, to accommodate Respondents’ concern to maintain the anonymity of their employees who participate in executions and the suppliers of their execution drugs. Through the entire course of the litigation, however, Petitioner has maintained that a one-drug protocol using pentobarbital would eliminate the risks presented by the use of the chemical paralytic and potassium chloride. Petitioner moved for a preliminary injunction, or in the alternative, for temporary restraining order, on June 4, 2025.2 Respondents filed their opposition on June 10.° Petitioner filed his reply on June 12.4 A hearing was conducted by the 1 Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U.S. 119 (2019). 2 ROA.7451-7503. As discussed in the sworn declaration of Petitioner’s counsel accompanying the stay motion in the Fifth Circuit, the motion for preliminary injunction could not be filed until the receipt and review of supplemental discovery which Petitioner had been demanding since November 2022. Respondents did not disclose the existence of, or produce, their 2021 and 2022 protocols until May 27, 2025, and they did not disclose the existence of, or produce, the lethal injection protocol applicable to this case until 5:09 p.m. on Friday, May 30, 2025. Similarly, Respondents did not supplement their production of documents related to training of MDOC personnel assigned to executions until May 27, 2025, when training documents from July 2021 to the date of production were produced. And Respondents did not supplement their production of documents related to their inventory of lethal injection drugs until May 21, 2025, when inventory documents from November 2022 to the date of production were produced. 3 ROA.7536-7565. 4 ROA.7730-7749. District Court on June 14.5 Th