The state of Missouri executed Michael Taylor by lethal injection early Wednesday morning. It is the state’s second execution this year, and the ninth nationwide in 2014. He made no last statement.
Taylor had been trying to delay his execution in court, but he was denied a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court. Then Jay Nixon, the governor of Missouri, rejected a request for clemency. Taylor’s lawyers had argued earlier this month that the state should not be allowed to put him to death because it could not guarantee the quality of the drugs that would be used.
According to a report by NBC News, a dissent from the 8th Circuit supported delaying the execution in order to investigate whether the drugs would cause terrible pain, which would violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
“One must wonder at the skills of the compounding pharmacist,” Judge Kermit Bye wrote. “In fact, from the absolute dearth of information Missouri has disclosed to this court, the ‘pharmacy’ on which Missouri relies could be nothing more than a high school chemistry class.”









