The SCOTUS has held, in a 7-2 decision in Baze v. Rees, that lethal injection is constitutional and does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The plaintiffs, both death row inmates, had claimed that it was unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment due to possible maladministration of the injections that can or could cause extreme pain. Only Souter and Ginsburg dissented.

Given that the court has long held the death penalty constitutional, I never really felt this outcome of this claim was in doubt. If the DP is to be done, this mode is a long accepted way of doing it more quietly and pain free by odds than other long done methods that are also traditional but not generally overly gruesome, prolonged and/or brutal (drop method hanging, electric chair, gas chamber, firing squad, etc). The Amendment also wasn't, at least by apparent original intent and its wording, intended to guarantee a pain-free execution but rather to prevent strange and barbaric punishments and torturous punishments then used or once used in British punishments (hang, draw and quartering and other gruesome and cruel execution spectacles, Tower of London gruesome torturing, etc).

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James Hoban. Irish Architect. Member of the Royal Dublin Society. Hoban designed and built the White House and based it upon the top exterior and interior two floors of Leinster House, then known as Kildare House, which is now the current Irish Parliament building. He was also a supervisory architect of the US Capitol Building.

This is good news.

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3 types; Leaders. Followers. Users.

Yes, the US can stand proudly with Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Jordan as one of the enlightened countries that executes people who, for the most part, are guilty..........

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

Although I am not a fan of the death penalty, either, I do think this is good news because there is no way that the way lethal injections are done is cruel and unusual punishment for the existing death penalty.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them, speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

What made this court decision especially interesting to me was that it in effect set up a test to find whether a mode of execution is unconstitutional, which has really not been done before. Stabs were made at it, but this seemed to try to confirm.

What is also interesting is the wide variety of opinions from the Justices in this case:

The plurality only contained 3 Justices (Roberts, Kennedy, Alito), who found that the 8th amendment was breached if a type of execution presented a "substantial risk of serious harm" or a "objectively intolerable risk of harm" to the inmate being executed". (Note that the course has upheld many times that death itself cannot be considered harm). What's really interesting here is that Roberts writes that modes of execution need to be examined by the "planned and properly drawn procedure" rather than what the effects would be if administered wrong.

Alito wrote separately in what seems to be an attempt to clarify the position to prevent further cases challenging the decision.

Stevens concured, but was rather skeptical of the death penalty altogether, but would not overturn precedent. He does not provide a test at all, and seems to want more litigation on the matter.

Scalia and Thomas disagree with the standard set by the court, instead saying that the standard should be whether a mode of exection is "deliberately designed to inflict pain", and that since the practice of lethal injection is designed to reduce the pain of execution, he concurs with the court's ruling.
Scalia uses most of his opinion to slam Stevens for his views that the death penalty is unconstitutional, saying that the 5th amendment clearly states that the death penalty is legal, and that the same congress that passed the 8th amendment passed the "Act of April 30, 1790" which allows certain acts to be punishable by death.

The final 3 justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter) think a method of capitol punishment is unconstitutional if it "creates an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary suffering"

Breyer finds that the Kentucky method does not, and so concurs with the court's ruling.

Ginsburg writes for Souter and feels that while an inmate may appear unconscious before administering the 2 lethal drugs, Kentucky has no methods to ensure this, such as shaking the inmate, calling out his/her name, checking blood pressure, or using the EKG already hooked up. She finds this by calling other States' procedures and showing why they may be safer.


So while there were 7 concuring judges, amongst those 7 were 3 separate standards for capital punishment, and one judge who questions the constutionality of capital punishment in the first place.

The debate is then, which of these standards most reflect the purpose of the 5th, 8th and 14th amendments. Personally, I believe this result has opened the door for a lot more debate about capital punishment, rather than closing the door on anything.

As stated in the opinion of Scalia, there is no evidence whatsoever that anyone has ever been wrongfully executed in the US.

The only problem with the death penalty is that it isn't used enough...

No, the US can stand proud because in this instance, we are truly a nation of laws, there is no rational argument that our Constitution proscribes the Death Penalty. You don't like it, convince your fellow citizens that we should abolish it through the democratic process, but as for the Supreme Court, they did EXACTLY the right thing (well, six of them did at least).

I wonder if democrats will be as gung-ho and absolutist in their views of stare decisis on THIS issues as their are where abortion is concerned?

And let me close with pointing out that the death penalty is still supported by the majority of the people in this country (and a majority of the people in most European Countries where there courts have more readily imposed the views of their societal elites on this issue than our own courts have been willing to do here), so you are really showing your contempt for the majority of your fellow citizens (bet you must LOVE Barack Obama?) I saw a great new campaign slogan for Obama:

"Obama! Its an elitist thing, you wouldn't understand it"

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Wouldn't be the first time Antonin was wrong.
Innocence

Just look at how many innocent people were released from death row because of DNA evidence, what does that tell you about people who were executed before DNA evidence became available?

What does that tell you about the process of determining guilt?
And are you sure that the remaining people are guilty, just because there is no DNA evidence to exonerate them?

Of course technically Scalia is right, once a person is executed, their conviction can't be appealed, because it's a moot point, so even when someone else confesses to the crime, the person executed is still considered guilty.

We had a case in Boston where 4 men were sentenced to death, but spared execution because the death penalty was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Two of the men died in prison, the other two were released after something like 20 years when it was discovered that the FBI withheld evidence that the men were innocent to protect an FBI informer who actually committed the murders in question.
The FBI was going to let the four men be executed, probably on the theory that they must be guilty of something..................

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“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

I’d say it’s a sure bet that somewhere along the line, someone innocent has taken the pipe. Does that mean the whole system is a stinker, maybe, I have to think on that some more.
My knee jerk reaction is no, there’s always a fraction of injustice in any system but I try to walk the talk; I cannot tell someone to their face their father died due to a bomb attack that we may have been able to defuse if not for the lock on torture, ipso facto, nor would I be able to look into the eyes of a child who's parent was gassed for a crime they didn't commit.


Regarding the decision, ( thats what the topic is) I think they decided it correctly imho, it does meet the cruel and unusual punishment benchmark.
If we wants to discuss the efficacy of the death penalty overall, we can do so if someone wants to start a thread.

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile....

Scalia's claim is phoney and discredits him and I wish he'd quit saying it. Executions were very commonplace into the 1800s and many of them have been deemed wrongful on the issue of actual guilt in today's reviews and accountings. Prejudice and other bias (especially against blacks, Native Americans and other unpopular ethnic or religious groups of a time period), lack of procedural and substantive due process, poor evidence standards, utilising the death penalty for crimes less than murder and even for 'moral offences,' etc, contributed to that.

Today's better standards of justice and limiting of the death penalties have severely reduced the chances of a wrongful execution, but it's admittedly still not a perfect system. Some have been released off death row due to exonerating DNA evidence, including one in my state already. Now, if he wishes to argue that these facts still make his point technically true because they were detected and released on death row thanks to DNA developments, that would be a Clintonian truth given the main purpose of his comment. But given the past, it isn't true anyway.

Moreover, Scalia doesn't need to say that falsehood to construct his legal opinion for holding that the DP is constitutional so it just puzzles me why he says that so often, never mind at all.

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James Hoban. Irish Architect. Member of the Royal Dublin Society. Hoban designed and built the White House and based it upon the top exterior and interior two floors of Leinster House, then known as Kildare House, which is now the current Irish Parliament building. He was also a supervisory architect of the US Capitol Building.

And how does any of this mean that the Death Penalty, which nobody can reasonably deny was clearly provided for in the text of the Constitution, has somehow become unconstitutional in the interim?

All of these arguments and points are perfectly valid and reasonable...for convincing your fellow citizens to eliminate the death penalty through the democratic process. They are not valid or relevant arguments with regard to whether the constitution proscribes it.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

If you hate this country so much, by all means, get the fuck out.

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

I'd agree on this one. Obviously there are several approaches on interpreting language, but ignoring its plain language isn't a valid approach IMO. That means jurists can debate the whens and hows of applying it, but the Constitution's express language recognises capital punishment so it's axiomatic that it can't be unconstitutional just on its own accord. Amending the constitution and/or abolishing it legislatively is the proper remedy for removing it altogether.

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James Hoban. Irish Architect. Member of the Royal Dublin Society. Hoban designed and built the White House and based it upon the top exterior and interior two floors of Leinster House, then known as Kildare House, which is now the current Irish Parliament building. He was also a supervisory architect of the US Capitol Building.

Hasn't this cliched inanity been played out yet, for goodness sake? Perhaps there's some kind of abbreviation you could use to say nothing with fewer words.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson