Christopher Lee Price, Petitioner v. Jefferson S. Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, et al.

This case asked the Supreme Court to review an Alabama death row inmate's challenge to the state's lethal injection protocol and its use of midazolam instead of pentobarbital. The Court declined review and did not decide the merits of those Eighth Amendment claims.

The Court declined to hear the case. No vote count or opinion lineup is provided in the record here.

That left the lower court's result in place for this inmate and for Alabama officials using the current execution protocol. More broadly, it showed how hard it can be for prisoners to get Supreme Court review of last-minute execution challenges.

There is no further action in this Supreme Court docket. The practical effect is that the lower court's ruling remained operative unless changed in some other proceeding.

Price said Alabama's three-drug protocol would cause extreme pain and argued the state should use pentobarbital instead. He also argued Alabama had not made enough effort to obtain that alternative drug.

Because the Court declined review, Alabama kept the benefit of the lower court ruling in this case. That mattered directly to Price and to state officials carrying out executions.

There was no further step in this Supreme Court case. The Court finished the docket action when it declined to hear the petition for certiorari (review).