Court Denies Delay of Miller Execution

A federal appeals court has blocked an attempt to delay David Earl Miller's execution while he challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection and the electric chair, The Tennessean reports. Miller was one of four death row inmates to file suit in November, arguing that a firing squad would be more humane than the state's three-drug lethal injection protocol or the electric chair. In order to secure a stay of execution, the appellate judges wrote, Miller would have to show he was likely to succeed in challenging Tennessee's execution methods as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. A majority of the judges said he had failed to do so.