Nashville, Tennessee - The Tennessee Supreme Court has suspended executions for four men on death row while courts decide the constitutionality of the state's use of lethal injection and the electric chair.
The ruling, filed on Friday, effectively suspends all executions in Tennessee, since the court previously vacated execution dates for other inmates on death row.
A group of inmates on Tennessee's death row had sued to halt executions, arguing that both lethal injection and the electric chair were unconstitutional.
Last July, Tennessee enacted a law making the electric chair the backup plan for executions if drugs for lethal injection were unavailable or if the method was deemed unconstitutional.
Various U.S. states have had trouble getting lethal injection chemicals because some pharmaceutical companies object to the use of their products in executions.
Lethal injection came under further scrutiny after botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona where inmates took longer to die than is typical after they were given new drug protocols.
The four men whose execution dates were vacated in Tennessee are Abu-Ali Abdur' Rahman, formerly known as James Lee Jones, scheduled for execution on October 6, 2015; Lee Hall, also known as Leroy Hall Jr, scheduled to die on January 12, 2016; Donald Wayne Strouth, whose execution date was March 15, 2016; and Nicholas Todd Sutton, who had been scheduled for execution on November 17, 2015.
Tennessee's high court had previously suspended the execution of Billy Ray Irick, scheduled for last October, based on the same constitutional challenges surrounding execution methods.
There are 68 men and one woman on death row in Tennessee, according to the Department of Correction website.
Tennessee executed Robert Glen Coe in April 2000 for the murder of an eight-year-old girl.
He was the first person executed in the state in 40 years.
Five other men have been executed since then, all for murder.
The last execution was in December 2009.
Reuters