US judge in Vegas begins hearings on Nevada execution plan

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal judge in Las Vegas has begun a series of hearings about the constitutionality of the never-before-tried method and combination of drugs that prison officials want to use for Nevada’s first lethal injection in more than 15 years. U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II on Tuesday heard from the first expert called by Zane Floyd’s attorneys. The judge plans to hear from the state’s top prison and medical administrators on dates scheduled into mid-December. Floyd does not want to die. He was convicted and sentenced in 2000 to death for killing four people and wounding a fifth in a 1999 shotgun attack at a Las Vegas grocery store.