LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky judge has declined to remove a court injunction that has blocked executions in the state for more than a decade.
Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, whose order blocked Kentucky’s lethal injections in 2010, wrote in a ruling Wednesday he would hold off on deciding on the ban, saying there have been changes to lethal injection regulations since then. He said there may also be constitutional questions about the new regulations that have to be settled.
Kentucky prison officials have carried out three executions since 1976, and none since 2008. There are about two dozen inmates on the state’s death row.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican who took office in January, has called on Shepherd to reverse his injunction, arguing that the families of victims “have suffered in limbo for long enough.”