2LT International News

FRANKFORT, Kentucky: Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd has declined to remove a court injunction that has blocked executions in Kentucky since 2010.

In a ruling last week, Shepherd wrote that he would hold off on deciding on the ban as lethal injection regulations have changed, and there could also be constitutional questions about new regulations.

There are some two dozen inmates on Kentucky’s death row.

Kentucky’s Republican Attorney-General Russell Coleman urged Shepherd to reverse his injunction, stressing that the families of victims “have suffered in limbo for long enough.”

“They deserve the justice that was lawfully delivered by a jury,” Coleman said.

“There is no longer any basis for the injunction, and the court should lift it,” he added, affirming that he would quickly appeal Shepherd’s ruling.

In his ruling, Shepherd noted that the plaintiff who initially sought the injunction, inmate Gregory Wilson, had his death sentence commuted by former Governor Matt Bevin in 2019, and there were questions about Wilson’s mental disabilities, along with “unresolved issues concerning the lethal injection protocols.”

“Because the death warrant against plaintiff Wilson no longer exists, and the regulations have been amended, the court can see no reason to address the issue of injunctive relief at this time,” Shepherd wrote.

When he stopped executions by lethal injection in the state before Wilson was about to be executed for a 1987 murder in Kenton County, Shepherd expressed concerns about how Kentucky determined if an inmate was mentally disabled.

He also questioned whether the use of a three-drug mixture caused an unconstitutional amount of pain and suffering.