Attorneys for a condemned inmate say Alabama's new lethal injection drug combination needs review because it relies on a drug used in two recently botched executions.
Lawyers for Tommy Arthur on Friday asked the Alabama Supreme Court to deny the state's request for an execution date.
Suhana S. Han tells that inmates executed in Ohio and Arizona took from 25 minutes to two hours to die, and that suggests the first drug given, the anesthetic midazolam, is unreliable.
Han says the new combination needs court scrutiny before it is used in Alabama.
Alabama adopted a new lethal injection procedure last month after a drug shortage had left the state unable to execute inmates.
The attorney general's office did not have an immediate comment.