Posted on 01/07/2008 11:25:49 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court justices indicated Monday they are deeply divided over a challenge to the way most states execute prisoners by lethal injection, which critics say creates an avoidable risk of excruciating pain.
With executions in the United States halted since late September, the court heard arguments in a case from Kentucky that calls into question the mix of three drugs used in most executions.
Justice Antonin Scalia was among several conservatives on the court who suggested he would uphold Kentucky's method of execution and allow capital punishment to resume.
States have been careful to adopt procedures that do not seek to inflict pain and should not be barred from carrying out executions even if prison officials sometimes make mistakes in administering drugs, Scalia said. “There is no painless requirement” in the Constitution, Scalia said.
But other justices said they are troubled by the procedure in which three drugs are administered in succession to knock out, paralyze and kill prisoners. The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, a third drug that stops the heart can cause excruciating pain. The second drug, meanwhile, paralyzes the prisoner, rendering him unable to express his discomfort.
“I'm terribly troubled by the fact that the second drug seems to cause all risk of excruciating pain,” Justice John Paul Stevens said.
Both sides in the case said they are bothered by the seemingly endless series of death penalty cases that come to the court.
Justice David Souter urged his colleagues to take the time necessary to issue a definitive decision about the three-drug method in this case, even if it means sending the case back to Kentucky for more study by courts there.
Scalia, however, said such a move would mean “a national cessation of executions. We're looking at years. We wouldn't want that to happen.”
Kentucky, backed by the Bush administration, says it works hard to execute inmates humanely, countering claims that its procedure violates the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But Donald Verrilli, a Washington lawyer who is a veteran of capital cases, told the justices that problems with executions in California, North Carolina and other states show that the three-drug procedure should be scrapped or thoroughly revamped.
“The risk here is real. That is why it is unlawful to euthanize animals the way Kentucky executes inmates,” Verrilli said. Kentucky bars the use of the paralytic on animals. An overdose of barbiturates is commonly used on animals.
Verrilli suggested a similar method be adopted in Kentucky.
But Roy Englert, arguing for the state, said a single drug has never been used in executions.
By contrast, he said, Kentucky regularly trains its execution team and employs an experienced worker to insert the intravenous lines through which the drugs are administered.
Recent executions in Florida and Ohio took much longer than usual, with strong indications that the prisoners suffered severe pain in the process. Workers had trouble inserting the IV lines that are used to deliver the drugs.
Lined up in front of the court waiting to attend the arguments, college students Jeremy Sperling and Gira Joshi said they oppose the death penalty, but regard making executions less painful and more humane as a worthy goal.
“You have the right to die with dignity,” said Joshi, a political science and religion major at New Jersey's Rutgers University. Sperling, a psychology and religion major at New York University, said serving a life prison term is the appropriate alternative to the death penalty.
The case is Baze v. Rees, 07-5439.
Thank you, Judge Scalia.
I guess the victims don’t deserve the right to die with dignity.
I am sickened that the idiot that said that went to my alma mater.
Go Scalia.
What’s the rational behind the three drug cocktail? Seems a massive dose of some opiate would just put them to sleep forever - quickly and cheaply.
Shhhhh... it's a plot by the eeeeeevilll drug companies.
This is an ignorant intervention. Everyone agrees that lethal injection is painless when properly administered.
The worry is over those hypothetical instances when it isn’t properly administered.
But we don’t know it wasn’t properly administered because dead men tell no tales.
Solution: a step-by-step written procedure to insure the chemicals are administered properly.
So a beloved family pet can be put to sleep with a shot, but it’s not good enough for a convicted murderer?? Bull.
La Guillotine
Quick is merciful.
And no mention of what Kennedy is thinking.
Wonder where he read that in the Constitution
Why not simply hire an anesthesiologist and get on with the executions?
Let me guess: 5-4 decision to support the Constitution, which doesn’t give “pain” any air at all in the text but is twisted to accommodate the Leftists’ interpretation that an axe-murderer deserves humane treatment? A serial killer/rapist deserves 20 years of appeals including complaining about “his” suffering?
The article would make it appear a majority do support retaining and enforcing lethal injection, he’s in the larger group, most are.. vote-wise, this will probably be a 6-3 or 7-2 or better.
We may actually see California using their new set-up this year at this rate. Hopefully, the local CA Judge will pull the plug and let it rip shortly after this decision is announced and stay(s) lifted.
Get A Rope. This is BS! Do it in a football stadium at half time.
It’s called a “Death Penalty”. Not euthanasia.
The lefty Justices are more than welcome to give the drug cocktail a try to see whether it constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment”
this piece re-titled to and running on wire as
Court divided over lethal injection case
and
Supreme Court divided over lethal injection
With the exception of the wrongly convicted man, if a murderer (and face it if on Death Row generally a murderer who did so gruesomely ) has to endure a few moments of excruciating pain before meeting their maker, I don’t see this as a problem.
I thought the same thing as you wrote. The victims suffered a lot more pain than these guys will.
What I like about this case is that it will take the lethal injection lawsuits out of the federal courts just like McCleskey v. Kemp took the racial disparity appeals out of the federal courts. Regarding California, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the 9th Circuit lately. They’ve been upholding (and sometimes even reinstating) a lot of death sentences over the last few months.
What a concept. Caring about what is, and is not, in the Constitution. If he can get Justice Kennedy to think this way, this case won't be a problem.
“This is an ignorant intervention.”
No its not. There are some lethal injection cases in state supreme courts which are being delayed. I know CA for sure. This will put an end to them hopefully.
and there you have it.
In Florida, and, I suspect, the rest of the Nation, the AMA forbids any medical professional to administer any drugs to cause death.
True. These cases are a tremendous tax on judicial resources, at the expense of the rest of society. At some point, this needs to be seriously considered.
No MD will do it
.
The SCOTUS would be 5-4 on the color of the sky...
That's the purpose of the paralytic drug that they argue against.
Even if the IV isn't inserted well and the drugs take a few seconds longer to take effect, they don't suffer long, and if the injection site were truly messed up, the paralytic wouldn't be as effective either.
Since the sedative is administered first, it is also doubtful that they are really suffering even if the drug that stops their heart takes a bit longer to take effect.
The three drug method works, and is reasonable. There is no good reason to stop it. If someone wants to develop and even better method of executing condemned prisoners, there is nothing wrong with that, but there is not sufficient reason to stop the current method from being used.
I don't give a damn if it's cruel, as long as it reamins usual.
You've got to have both together
You can't have one, without the other.
What part of "AND" don't Liberals understand?
Lets give prisoners the pro choice vote...
Otherwise, as a matter of punishment, there is no point to extinguishing a life if it is not to protect others.
On that grounds, hanging, shooting and electrocution are viable methods.
If the Supreme Court prohibits executions, I suspect there will be a rash of "posses" ensuring justice will be carried out. Such is the responsibilities of citizens when the government fails to enforce the law.
1) Hanging was the standard mode of execution at the time the “Cruel and Inhuman” clause was written. I gather that no form of execution less painful then several minutes of fully conscious suffocation and a broken neck was seen as violative of that clause by the Constitution’s authors.
2) I don’t agree with the crowd eager for an executed inmate’s pain, or at least indifferent to such pain. If law and society requires an execution, let it be done as easily as circumstance and technology allow. However there is no such a thing as a gentle execution and that much be accepted.
3) I’ve considered the question in the past and the only truly quick, painless, and humane form of execution I can arrive at is a high caliber bullet unexpectedly fired into the back of the condemned’s head. This is however done at cost to the shooter. Even the Nazis found this to do great psychological harm to their executioners, so how much more to decent contemporary prison officials who would be given this task.
4) The lethal cocktail seems the best compromise the current state of society will permit.
5) The next president can almost certainly count on three Supreme Court appointments and if a dem will assuredly appoint anti DP justices. Regardless of public support for the practice it is only a matter of time until the court puts so many restrictions and roadblocks as to effectievely abolish capital punishment.
That’s for catfish (bullheads)!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.