AG: Executions on hold during lethal injection challenge

The state Attorney General's office says scheduled executions will remain on hold until a decision is made in its appeal of a federal judge's ruling that the state's 3-drug method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

Other states have resumed executions since the U.S. Supreme Court turned back a constitutional challenge to the lethal injection procedure in Kentucky.

But Tennessee faces an additional legal challenge brought by death row inmate Edward Jerome Harbison last year.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ruled in September the state's lethal injection procedure amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because of the "substantial risk of unnecessary pain" to the inmate.

Trauger barred the state from using the method until it addresses problems with training and medical expertise.

Elizabeth Ryan, senior counsel with the AG's office, said Thursday that once a ruling is made, they will look at resuming executions.

(source: Associated Press)