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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Federal Judge Gives|No Help to Texas Killers

HOUSTON — A federal judge Monday rejected claims from two Texas murderers who say executing them with pentobarbital would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Perry Williams is to be executed on July 14 by the same method Texas used to kill Michael Yowell on Oct. 9, 2013: injecting him with 5 grams of pentobarbital.

Yowell was a co-plaintiff with Williams and Thomas Whitaker, whose execution has not yet been scheduled.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes dismissed the case on Monday "because (a) their first, second, and part of their third claims are barred by limitations, (b) they did not adequately plead their complaint, and (c) all four claims are unsubstantiated by reliable, articulable, and demonstrable facts that establish the claims upon which they seek relief."

Hughes called the second amended complaint a speculative "rambling of theories" that the drug will make Williams and Whittaker "suffer pain more cruel in character or intensity. The plaintiffs offer no facts that demonstrate that this risk is not more than merely hypothetical nor do they state the intolerable harm Williams and Whitaker would actually suffer from the drug's use."

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