Page:Glossip v. Gross.pdf/99

 Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015)

3

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

quent injections of pancuronium and potassium chloride,” id., at 49. Based on that premise, the Court ultimately rejected the challenge to Kentucky’s protocol, with the plurality opinion concluding that the State’s procedures for administering these three drugs ensured there was no “objectively intolerable risk” of severe pain. Id., at 61–62 (internal quotation marks omitted). B For many years, Oklahoma performed executions using the same three drugs at issue in Baze. After Baze was decided, however, the primary producer of sodium thio­ pental refused to continue permitting the drug to be used in executions. Ante, at 4–5. Like a number of other States, Oklahoma opted to substitute pentobarbital, an­ other barbiturate, in its place. But in March 2014, shortly before two scheduled executions, Oklahoma found itself unable to secure this drug. App. 144. The State rescheduled the executions for the following month to give it time to locate an alternative anesthetic. In less than a week, a group of officials from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the Attorney General’s office selected midazolam to serve as a replacement for pentobarbital. Id., at 145, 148–149. Soon thereafter, Oklahoma used midazolam for the first time in its execution of Clayton Lockett. That execution did not go smoothly. Ten minutes after an intravenous (IV) line was set in Lockett’s groin area and 100 milli­ grams of midazolam were administered, an attending physician declared Lockett unconscious. Id., at 392–393. When the paralytic and potassium chloride were adminis­ tered, however, Lockett awoke. Ibid. Various witnesses reported that Lockett began to writhe against his re­ straints, saying, “[t]his s*** is f***ing with my mind,” “something is wrong,” and “[t]he drugs aren’t working.” Id., at 53 (internal quotation marks omitted). State offi­