More litigation over lethal injection

Thanks to Howard's post here, I see that a panel of the Eighth Circuit in the late afternoon on Tuesday voted 2-1 to grant an emergency stay to Missouri death-row prisoner Timothy Johnston.  But, as further detailed in this later news report, hours later "the full Eighth Circuit bench overruled the stay at the request of Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon." 

As the newspaper articles explain, Johnson's main legal claim is that "Missouri's practice of lethal injection threatened him with a painful death that would violate the U.S. Constitution's bar on cruel and unusual punishment."  As detailed in recent posts here and here and here, Missouri and other states have recently confronted a number of constitutional challenges to their lethal injection protocols.

UPDATE: As detailed in news accounts here and here, Timothy Johnston was executed by the state of Missouri early Wednesday morning.