Tulsa Pharmacy Blocked From Selling Execution Drug To Missouri

A federal judge in Tulsa temporarily blocked an Oklahoma pharmacy from selling a drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for use in an upcoming execution. 

The judge agreed late Wednesday to issue a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed by Missouri death row inmate Michael Taylor.

Taylor asked the court to bar a Tulsa compounding pharmacy from providing the drug to be used in his lethal injection.

Michael Taylor's lawsuit alleges that the Missouri Department of Corrections contracted with The Apothecary Shoppe in Tulsa to provide compounded pentobarbital for his February 26, 2014 execution.

Michael Taylor's complaint

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday alleges the drug will cause "significant, unnecessary and lingering pain and suffering" for Taylor, who was sentenced to die for the 1989 rape and stabbing death of 15-year-old Ann Harrison of Kansas City as she waited for a school bus near her home.

Michael Taylor was sentenced to death in 1994.

In a statement last month, The Apothecary Shoppe would neither confirm nor deny that it provided pentobarbital for a Missouri execution held January 29.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.