Lethal Injection Before High Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures used in Kentucky.
Two death-row inmates, Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., claim the procedure amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, the Associated Press reports. Their lawyer, public defender David Barron, calls the appeal “probably one of the most important cases in decades as it relates to the death penalty.”
Barron’s cert petition (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) says the case “presents the court with the clearest opportunity to provide guidance to the lower courts on the applicable legal standard for method of execution cases.”
The petition says the law applied by lower courts “is a haphazard flux.” In weighing whether an execution is cruel and unusual, courts have come up with tests including “wanton infliction of pain,” “excessive pain,” “unnecessary pain” and “substantial risk of wanton and unnecessary pain,” the petition says.
