Free Republic

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday that a Missouri man can be executed by lethal injection after he argued that a medical condition would cause him "severe pain" during the procedure. Russell Bucklew, who was convicted of murder, kidnapping and rape, appealed his planned execution, claiming it would violate his Eighth Amendment rights protecting him against "cruel and unusual punishment." Justice Neil Gorsuch, however, wrote in the court’s opinion that justices “can discern no lawful basis” for blocking Bucklew’s execution. Bucklew had been convicted in the 1996 kidnapping and rape of his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, and the murder of...

ST. LOUIS — A condemned Missouri inmate faces a potentially “gruesome and painful” execution because of a rare medical condition that compromises the man’s veins and causes multiple tumors in his head and throat, his attorney said Sunday. Russell Bucklew is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday evening for killing a former girlfriend’s new boyfriend in 1996 in eastern Missouri. Bucklew, 49, was moments away from execution in May 2014 when the U.S. Supreme Court halted it amid concerns about Bucklew’s medical condition. He suffers from cavernous hemangioma, a rare ailment that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels, as well...