By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters] – Oklahoma does not need to delay a planned resumption in executions scheduled for this week, while a case challenging the state’s three-drug protocol used for murdering condemned inmates was adjudged. Federal judge ruled on Monday.

Five death row inmates requested a preliminary order from Judge Stephen Friot of U.S. District Court, Western District of Oklahoma. This was after Monday’s long hearing. The lawyers for the prisoners, one of whom is due to be executed Thursday, appealed immediately.

The inability to offer any reprieve to John Grant and the other five prisoners, who were sentenced for execution on Thursday, is despite decreasing support nationwide for the death penalty.

The Death Penalty Information Center tracks executions and reports that 36 states in America, as well as the District of Columbia, have either eliminated the death penalty, or haven’t executed a single execution within the past 10 years.

Since Charles Frederick Warner’s 2015 death, Oklahoma hasn’t executed anyone in execution since then. Officials later claimed that Warner was executed with the wrong drug after he was convicted for the murder and rape of an infant 11 months old.

Clayton Lockett had been convicted for murder, rape, and kidnapping in 2011. He was then able to regain consciousness, raise his head and raised it after the execution started, and died of apparent anguish less that an hour later.

Additionally, in 2014, Michael Wilson, a condemned prisoner, said his final words to attorneys in a lawsuit against the execution.

The lawsuit was joined by 32 Oklahoma Death Row prisoners. It is scheduled for trial in February. Six inmates, including Julius Jones and Grant, have been fighting for their innocence for over a century. Their case attracted the attention of criminal justice reform advocates and celebrities. A judge removed Grant from the suit, which led the state to set execution dates.

They were reinstated to the suit by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on October 15. The attorneys requested that they be executed on the same dates as the other plaintiffs.

Oklahoma Attorney General John M. O’Connor spokeswoman said that he didn’t have anything to comment on Monday morning prior to the ruling. O’Connor’s representatives couldn’t be reached after the ruling.