OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A federal appeals court has denied an Oklahoma death row inmate's challenge to the state's lethal injection protocol and request for stay of execution.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took the action Friday when it affirmed a lower court decision in the case of 39-year-old Michael Hooper. Hooper is scheduled to be executed Tuesday for the December 1993 deaths of his former girlfriend, 23-year-old Cynthia Lynn Jarman, and her two children, 5-year-old Tonya and 3-year-old Timmy.
Hooper filed a lawsuit last month in an attempt to force the state to provide a backup dose of pentobarbital, the first of 3 drugs administered during a lethal injection. It also challenged the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection method.
U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange denied the request last week.
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