The way is again clear for Andrew Allen Cook to die Thursday evening.

Lawyers for the man convicted of killing two Mercer University students in 1995 had won a temporary stay of execution Wednesday from the Georgia Court of Appeals.

They argued that the state cannot legally use a powerful sedative for lethal injections without first getting a prescription from a doctor.

But on Thursday afternoon the Georgia Supreme Court lifted the stay.

"The statute is fairly clear, whether you agree with it or not," said John Marshall Law School professor Michael Mears. "The dispensing and the using of these particular medications [for executions] does not constitute the practicing of medicine and is not regulated."

Attorneys for death row inmate Warren Lee Hill had made the same failed argument about the execution drug, but that case will likely linger on over the question of whether Hill is developmentally disabled, Mears said.

But Cook, who is scheduled to die at 7 PM Thursday, appears to be out of options, Mears said.

Tags: politics, death penalty, Georgia Supreme Court, lethal injection, Capital Punishment, Adam Ragusea, Andrew Allen Cook