A judge holding hearings on the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal injection procedure will hear testimony from two anesthesiologists who disagree whether the drugs used to execute prisoners cause excruciating pain.

A story from the AP says, two men facing murder charges in northeast Ohio are challenging the lethal injection procedure, saying the drugs don't give the quick and painless deaths required by state law.

Mark Heath, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University, is expected to testify Monday on behalf defendants Ronald McCloud and Ruben Rivera.

"What he's going to say is the method of lethal injection we use in Ohio _ the way we go about doing it _ builds in an enormously and unnecessarily high likelihood of torturing people to death," said Jeffrey Gamso, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents McCloud and Rivera. Each could receive death sentences if convicted in separate Lorain County murders.

The state is expected counter with expert witness Mark Dershwitz, an anesthesiologist from Massachusetts, who will testify via video conference Tuesday.

Ohio has executed 26 inmates since it resumed putting prisoners to death in 1999.