Washington ? Now, amid reports that people suffer excruciating pain and linger before death, the Supreme Court will consider whether the most common method of lethal injection – the use of three drugs to sedate, relax and kill someone – violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices agreed Tuesday to hear a challenge to the practice from two inmates on death row in Kentucky – Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. The case could further slow the pace of executions around the country.

The last time the court considered a challenge to a method of execution was in 1879, when it upheld the use of a firing squad in Utah.

The Supreme Court has previously made it easier for death row inmates to contest the lethal injections used across the country for executions.

But until Tuesday, the justices had passed up cases that posed the question of whether the mix of drugs and the way they are administered in three dozen states violate the Constitution. The court will hear arguments in the case on Jan. 7, said David Barron, the inmates’ attorney.

The inmates’ appeal was among 17 new cases the court accepted for its term that begins Monday.

There have been 1,098 executions, 927 by lethal injection, since the Supreme Court halted executions in 1972 and allowed them to resume in 1976. The annual number of executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and fell to 53 last year. So far in 2007, 41 people have been executed.

No state other than Texas has put to death more than three people this year. Texas has executed 25 inmates by lethal injection.

And with another execution scheduled for Tuesday evening, the state had no plans for a delay, Gov. Rick Perry’s office said.

Death penalty opponents said they were hopeful that states and courts would call a temporary halt to executions at least until the high court decides the case, probably by June.

The court could go in several directions, ruling broadly that the mix of drugs used in Kentucky and most other states creates too much risk of excessive pain or more narrowly in providing states and judges a roadmap to carrying out executions.