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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Use of Lethal Injection
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Use of Lethal Injection (Update4)
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By Greg Stohr
April 16 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lethal-injection method used by states around the country to administer the death penalty, clearing the way for a resumption of executions after a seven-month hiatus.
A splintered court voted 7-2 to uphold Kentucky's use of a three-drug protocol, saying the state has adequate safeguards to ensure inmates won't endure significant pain. Two inmates argued that the state's procedure violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
``Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of objectively intolerable risk of harm that qualifies as cruel and unusual,'' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's lead opinion.
The ruling likely will lift the moratorium the justices had effectively placed on executions nationwide while they considered the case. Roberts said that ``a state with a lethal injection protocol substantially similar to the protocol we uphold today'' wouldn't violate the constitution.
The court has never declared a method of execution unconstitutional, permitting the electric chair in 1890 and firing squads in 1878.
Separately, the court today considered whether the death penalty is a constitutionally permissible penalty for child rape. The justices will rule in that case by July.
Drug Combination
The lethal-injection fight centered on a drug combination that has been used in almost 1,000 lethal injections and is now virtually the exclusive U.S. execution method. The three-drug method is used by 35 states and the federal government.
Under the three-drug method, inmates are injected with sodium pentothal, an anesthetic, followed by pancuronium bromide, which shuts down the lungs and paralyzes the body. The final chemical, potassium chloride, induces a fatal heart attack.
Critics say the danger is that the first chemical might not render the inmate unconscious. The second drug then would cause a conscious paralysis while the third drug would produce what the Kentucky inmates' lawyers said would be ``excruciating'' pain.
Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy joined Roberts's opinion. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer all said they agreed with the result, though not with Roberts's reasoning.
Thomas, writing for himself and Scalia, said that an execution method is unconstitutional ``only if it is deliberately designed to inflict pain.''
Stevens Approach
Stevens voted to uphold Kentucky's approach, saying that conclusion was dictated by the court's precedents, even as he declared that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional.
``The imposition of the death penalty represents `the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes,''' Stevens wrote, quoting from a 1972 Supreme Court opinion that temporarily outlawed the death penalty.
Dissenting Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, along with Breyer, said Roberts's opinion made it too difficult for inmates to challenge an execution method as unconstitutional. All said they would outlaw execution methods that create ``untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain.''
Breyer said the Kentucky inmates failed to show that risk existed, while Ginsburg and Souter said they would return the case to the lower courts to reconsider the issue.
Child-Rape Case
In the child-rape case, Patrick Kennedy is appealing his death sentence in Louisiana for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. He would be the first person executed in the U.S. for rape, or any crime besides murder, since 1964. Louisiana and four other states explicitly permit execution of people convicted of raping a child.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the Constitution bars executing a man convicted of raping a 16-year-old. Roberts and Scalia questioned whether that ruling has prevented a debate that might have led to a national consensus in favor of executing rapists of children.
When prosecutor Juliet Clark said Kennedy's crime was a ``very savage'' one, Breyer suggested that by allowing capital punishment for child-rapists, the court would open the door for states to ``categorize horrible by horrible'' and impose death on many crimes short of murder.
``Just the way they used to,'' Scalia interjected.
``Perhaps at the time, 200 years ago, that's true,'' Breyer responded.
Justice Kennedy asked lawyers on both sides whether Louisiana's law could be narrowed, perhaps by allowing it to be imposed only on repeat child-rapists.
Executions Questioned
In the lethal-injection case, lawyers for the Kentucky inmates pointed to executions in Ohio, Florida, California and Missouri in which condemned men allegedly didn't receive an adequate dosage of pentothal and showed signs of consciousness and pain. The lawyers said the risk could be reduced by using only a single, larger dose of a barbiturate.
Roberts said Kentucky wasn't required to adopt ``untested alternative procedures.''
Kentucky officials said they have adequate safeguards to ensure an inmate receives the proper dosage.
Among other requirements, the execution team participates in 10 annual practice sessions that include insertion of an intravenous needle into a volunteer. In addition, the person who places the IV is a phlebotomist, a specialist who typically places 30 needles a day in prisoners, the state argued.
Death-row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling challenged Kentucky's method. Baze was convicted of murdering a Kentucky sheriff and his deputy when they were trying to serve warrants on him in 1992. Bowling was convicted of shooting a couple to death and wounding their 2-year-old son after a 1990 automobile accident.
Baze and Bowling weren't challenging their death sentences at the Supreme Court, although each is separately contesting his conviction.
The lethal-injection case is Baze v. Rees, 07-5439, and the child-rape case is Kennedy v. Louisiana, 07-343.
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at [email protected].
Last Updated: April 16, 2008 13:41 EDT |
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what do people think....i'm not a big fan of the death penalty. i can't think of anything more cruel and unusual (which would be in violation of the constitution) than actually killing someone. the fact that it was a 7-2 decision is surprising to me, although i'm not a follower of justice decisions. I must admit, that i am happy that at least justice stevens has respect for legal precedence, even though i doubt that most of the conservative court will follow him in the other social issues that come before the court (abortion, guns, etc...)
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pwnt
