By Associated Press
Montgomery, AL – Two death row inmates scheduled to die next week and next month are using the same legal strategy that proved unsuccessful for another Alabama prisoner who was executed last month.
Luther Jerome Williams and Thomas Douglas Arthur have filed suits contending that the way Alabama carries out lethal injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Both lost in federal courts in Alabama. Their next step is a federal appeals court in Atlanta.
The last inmate executed in Alabama was Darrell Grayson on July 26th. Shortly before he was scheduled to die, he filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama's lethal injection procedures, but federal judges rejected it as being filed too late.
The Alabama Supreme Court has scheduled Williams to die August 23rd for a 1988 killing.
Arthur is slated to die September 27th for a 1982 killing.
U.S. district judges in Mobile and Montgomery cited Grayson's suit in blocking suits by Williams and Arthur.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)