Eighth Circuit affirms rejection of death row prisoners' attack on Missouri's lethal injection protocol

An Eighth Circuit panel today has ruled on an appeal concerning a constitutional attack on Missouri's execution protocol in Middleton v. Crawford, No. 08-2807 (8th Cir. Nov. 10, 2009) (available here).  Here is the unofficial summary of the ruling from the Eighth Circuit website:

Missouri death row prisoners challenging Missouri's execution protocol did not allege a sufficiently substantial risk of serious harm or a sufficiently imminent danger to state an Eighth Amendment claim, and the district court did not err, as a matter of law, in determining that the prisoners had failed to state a claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment; no error in denying motions to intervene.