LODEN
JACKSON – Death row inmate Thomas Edwin Loden filed a petition Wednesday challenging the drug used by the state during lethal injections.
Loden, 49, was pleaded guilty to capital murder, rape and sexual battery in the death of Leesa Marie Gray in Itawamba County in 2000.
In his 217-page petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court for post-conviction relief, Loden argues that state law requires lethal injection executions to use an “ultra short-acting barbiturate or other similar drug.”
“The Mississippi Department of Corrections cannot lawfully execute Mr. Loden using midazolam, which is neither an ‘ultra short-acting barbiturate’ nor an ‘other similar drug,’” states the petition, filed by attorney Stacy Ferraro for Loden.