[Porterville]

From the story... I ain't no high fangled lawyer dabling in the black arts of double speak but this is from the story:

An appeals court will now review Taylor's claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

[Porterville]

Is that called "presedence" or in my not so lawyered tongue... "it happened before"?

[gondramB]

I think that we should not make death painful. Being paralyzed sounds really unpleasant. We should use a fatal overdose of opiates. Besides, we would have less guilty people appealing for years.

And look at this
"He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor's execution."

It sounds like Arkansas may have handed this to Alito on purpose and he may be wise to take a few days to look at it.

On the other hand this is from the Washington Post so it's not unreasonable to assume they are biased against Alito.

[NearlyNormal]

Perhaps it will lead to the dead-men-walking being able to choose the method and manner of their death (just as they choose their last meal).

Although they might then also argue that the contemplation of that decision alone might constitute 'cruel and unusual punishment'!