In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Link: ‘Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection Protocol’
Video: ‘Sweet Melissa on Death Penalty Case at Supreme Court’
Background: Execution by lethal injection
Historical Context: Death penalty cases heard before the Supreme Court during the 20th century
Opinion and Analysis: Establishing standards; states mull return to death penalty
Reference: Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court, the Bill of Rights, and capital punishment by state
Related Topic: ‘Public Defender Builds Injection Case’
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States Consider Resumption of Death Penalty After Supreme Court Decision
by
findingDulcinea Staff
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the use of lethal injections in Kentucky. Most states had halted executions pending the outcome of the case.
30-Second Summary
Ruling 7-2 against Kentucky inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling, the high court determined that the lethal injection used in Kentucky does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, as it does not have “substantial risk of serious harm.”
The Court acknowledged cases of painfully botched executions with the three-drug injection. But the majority feared that ruling in favor of Baze would open up the courts to complaints about capital-punishment sentencing.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, writing, "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 … constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were the dissenters.
Kentucky uses a combination of three drugs in its lethal injection. Death-row inmates petitioned to change the injection to a single barbiturate. In the three-drug cocktail, if the initial anesthetic is not effective, then the other two drugs, which halt breathing and heartbeat, can leave the prisoner in intense pain.
The decision paves the way for other states to go through with planned executions by lethal injection. California Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette said that resumption of the death penalty by the end of the year “is entirely possible,” although there are still legal hurdles. Texas and Virginia are going forward with planned executions, and Nebraska is considering adopting the injection as its form of execution after the state’s Supreme Court banned use of the electric chair in February.
The Court acknowledged cases of painfully botched executions with the three-drug injection. But the majority feared that ruling in favor of Baze would open up the courts to complaints about capital-punishment sentencing.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, writing, "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 … constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were the dissenters.
Kentucky uses a combination of three drugs in its lethal injection. Death-row inmates petitioned to change the injection to a single barbiturate. In the three-drug cocktail, if the initial anesthetic is not effective, then the other two drugs, which halt breathing and heartbeat, can leave the prisoner in intense pain.
The decision paves the way for other states to go through with planned executions by lethal injection. California Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette said that resumption of the death penalty by the end of the year “is entirely possible,” although there are still legal hurdles. Texas and Virginia are going forward with planned executions, and Nebraska is considering adopting the injection as its form of execution after the state’s Supreme Court banned use of the electric chair in February.
Headline Link: ‘Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection Protocol’
NPR writes that executions recently held in Ohio and Florida using the three-drug mix took longer than expected, indicating that the prisoners likely suffered excruciating pain during the procedure. Kentucky has used the three-drug injection only once—on a prisoner in 1999.
Source: NPR
Video: ‘Sweet Melissa on Death Penalty Case at Supreme Court’
Sweet Melissa, the author of a political blog of the same name, points out in a clip dated March 27 that Baze v. Rees marked the first time since 1890 that the Supreme Court ruled on the legality of the method used to execute prisoners. That year, the Court decided that the electric chair and firing squad did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Source: YouTube
Background: Execution by lethal injection
Oklahoma was the first state to adopt lethal injection as a form of capital punishment in 1977, but Texas would be the first to use it on Dec. 2, 1982 in the execution of Charles Brooks. The mechanics of the procedure are described in detail in this article at Death Penalty Info.
Source: Death Penalty Info
Historical Context: Death penalty cases heard before the Supreme Court during the 20th century
Furman v. Georgia, 1972
The 1972 Supreme Court case of Furman v. Georgia put a temporary moratorium on the death penalty, on the grounds that it “was arbitrary and capricious.”
Source: American Bar Association
Godfrey v. Georgia, 1980
The case of Godfrey v. Georgia expanded upon the 1972 case, saying that states must adjust sentencing for a given crime so that the death penalty cannot be given without standards.
Source: FindLaw
Pulley v. Harris, 1984
In Pulley v. Harris, the Supreme Court determined that the Eighth Amendment does not require state courts to issue death sentences on the basis of proportionality with other capital punishment cases.
Source: JSTOR
Opinion and Analysis: Establishing standards; states mull return to death penalty
Establishing standards
SCOTUSblog argues that Baze v. Rees in effect created a standard by which the high court can determine what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment,” namely whether or not the injection poses a “substantial risk of serious harm.” Chief Justice Roberts said that a state may adopt an execution procedure that is “feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduce[s] a substantial risk of severe pain.” If states use an injection “substantially similar” to the one used in Kentucky, then there is little chance of them being put on hold.
Source: SCOTUSblog
The court’s plurality was wary of the idea that a prisoner should be able to negotiate a “slight or marginally safer alternative” to the given sentence. Legal blog DailyWrit writes that Justice Samuel Alito “fears a court system that is flooded with contests like this one and seeks to limit the cases that may arise in the future.”
Source: DailyWrit
The BLT: The Blog on Legal Times argues that long-term Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, while not one of the two dissenters, still feels that capital punishment affords no benefit to society, calling the death penalty “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.”
Source: The BLT: The Blog on Legal Times
States ponder if and when to resume executions
California has some 650 inmates on death row. According to Calif. State Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette, who has defended the lethal injection in California against the Supreme Court injunction that installed a nationwide moratorium on that form of execution, says that a return to death by injection “is entirely possible” by the end of the year. Defense lawyers in the state are not as sure, however. Said David Senior, a lawyer for death row prisoner Michael Morales, “There’s a lot for the state of California to consider before they can schedule Christmas executions.”
Source: Los Angeles Times (free registration may be required)
Prosecutors in Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located, said following the Supreme Court ruling that they would push ahead with six planned executions. Texas Gov. Rick Perry applauded the Supreme Court’s decision: “Texas is a law-and-order state, and I stand by the majority of Texans who support the death penalty as it is written in Texas law.” But some legal experts within the state said that the case did not provide enough of a framework to prevent appeals on capital punishment cases.
Source: Houston Chronicle
Va. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said on Wednesday after the high court’s decision that the state will resume executions by lethal injection, with one scheduled in April, May and June each. Gordon Hickey, a spokesperson for the governor, said, “The governor will continue to review any clemency requests on a case-by-case basis.”
Source: The Richmond Times-Dispatch
Neb. Gov. Dave Heineman announced on Wednesday that he is organizing a committee to determine whether or not the state should adopt the lethal injection as its form of execution. Since the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in February that death by electric chair is inhumane, the state has been without a method of capital punishment.
Source: Omaha World-Herald
Cleveland paper The Plain Dealer reported that Ohio would again use the death penalty. Ohio Solicitor General Bill Marshall said, “I think it means the Ohio lethal-injection process is going to be upheld because Ohio's process is very similar to Kentucky’s.”
Source: The Plain Dealer
Reference: Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court, the Bill of Rights, and capital punishment by state
The Supreme Court’s 91-page ruling on Baze v. Rees is available from the Court’s Web site in PDF format.
Source: U.S. Supreme Court (PDF document)
The first 10 amendments of the Constitution are available from the National Archives.
Source: National Archives
FindingDulcinea’s Guide to the Supreme Court includes links on its history, landmark cases and biographies of past and present justices.
Source: findingDulcinea
Related Topic: ‘Public Defender Builds Injection Case’
The lawyer arguing on behalf the two Kentucky death-row inmates filing the complaint is a 29-year-old Kentucky state public defender. David Barron came to the case after arriving in the state just a year out of law school. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his case in September, two months after he passed the Kentucky bar exam.
Source: Legal Reader
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