Missouri executes murderer after US court ruling
July 15, 2015
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied several appeals from the lawyers of convicted murderer David Zink's lawyers to halt his execution. They had claimed that Missouri officials would be violating federal law by using pentobarbital obtained from a compounding pharmacy.
At 7:41 p.m. local time (0041 UTC Wednesday), David Zink was pronounced dead by lethal injection in Bonne Terre, Missouri, prison spokesman Mike O'Connell said.
The US Supreme Court had ruled on June 29 that the drug midazolam used in lethal injections by the state of Oklahoma did not violate the US Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In the 5-4 ruling, the court decided that plaintiffs had failed to show that midazolam had a substantial risk of causing severe pain. The court did not directly address the constitutionality of the death penalty.
The 55-year-old Zink had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young woman he abducted after he hit her car in July 2001.
Just months before he killed 19-year-old Amanda Morton, Zink had been released from a Texas prison after serving 20 years on rape, abduction and escape charges.
He told authorities in a videotaped confession that he rear-ended Morton's car on an exit ramp, then abducted her and
killed her because he feared he would be sent back to prison.
Zink was the fifth man executed this year in Missouri and the 17th since November 2013. Only Texas has executed more inmates over the same period.
jm/msh (Reuters, AP)