Court Upholds Lethal Injection, States Finally Free to Get Their Kill On

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

"We ... agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion that garnered only three votes. Four other justices, however, agreed with the outcome.

Roberts' opinion did leave open subsequent challenges to lethal injection practices if a state refused to adopt an alternative method that significantly reduced the risk of severe pain.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Executions have been on hold since September, when the court agreed to hear the Kentucky case. There was no immediate indication when they would resume.

The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of those drugs, a paralytic, would render the prisoner unable to express his discomfort.

The case before the court came from Kentucky, where two death row inmates did not ask to be spared execution or death by injection. Instead, they wanted the court to order a switch to a single drug, a barbiturate, that causes no pain and can be given in a large enough dose to cause death.

At the very least, they said, the state should be required to impose tighter controls on the three-drug process to ensure that the anesthetic is given properly.

Roberts said the one-drug method, frequently used in animal euthanasia, "has problems of its own, and has never been tried by a single state."

Roberts said the one-drug method, frequently used in animal euthanasia, "has problems of its own, and has never been tried by a single state."

crispy said:
D'OH!

I didn't even see this thread. When I saw the news, I went and bumped MissTyrios' article from a little bit ago.

Sorry, 'Brosa.

coyotemike said:

So YOU'RE the reason I posted in the wrong thread. Damn You!!!

coyotemike said:
The death penalty came up in my class discussion today. We were talking about the duty, a la MLK, JR., to break any laws one feels are unjust. And one of my students piped in with "I think it is unjust to not have the death penalty."

I asked him if there was a proper way to follow in the steps of King, and he says "Well, we should just shoot them, then."

This is a student who often quotes the Bible in class, says he doesn't drink because he thinks it is wrong in the eyes of God, and constantly wants to argue with me about religous matters.