Jeffrey Landrigan was sentenced to death for killing a Phoenix man in 1989, but his execution was stayed in 2007, pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed condemned prisoners to question their state's method of execution by lethal injection.

In a ruling published Wednesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Raymond Lee knocked down Landrigan's claims that Arizona's lethal-injection procedure is unconstitutional, moving the state one step closer to resuming executions of murderers.