Roberts Court: Human Execution Doesn't Have to be Humane

No kidding. 

The US Supreme
Court has decided that execution proceedures in the US doesn't even have to meet the standards required when putting down an animal.  The Chief Justice wrote the majority opinion

Excerpts  " Lethal injections ruled not cruel punishment":

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in a case from Kentucky, which like California uses an anesthetic to render an inmate unconscious, followed by a paralyzing drug that halts breathing and by a third chemical that stops the heart.

At least 30 of the 36 states that provide for lethal injection use that combination. Condemned prisoners in virtually all those states have contended in lawsuits that the process lacks safeguards to make sure the anesthetic is effective, creating the risk that the inmate will remain conscious and in agony while dying - and, because of the paralyzing drug, will be unable to cry out.

...

He said the courts would be justified in intervening only if an inmate could show that a method of execution presents a "substantial risk of severe pain," and that the state could easily avoid that risk.

...

On Wednesday, however, a majority of the court said the possibility that the anesthetic could fail does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, even if other procedures exist that might reduce the risk that an inmate will suffer pain.

Federal courts in several states, including California, have granted stays of execution based on those arguments and on evidence of unexpected problems in lethal injections. No one has been executed since shortly after the Supreme Court agreed in September to hear the Kentucky case.

...

Observing that "some risk of pain is inherent in any execution," Roberts said a state doesn't have to adopt any alternatives that would diminish the likelihood of pain, only those that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain and can be readily implemented.

Well, look at the simple alternative.

He [(Chief Justice Roberts)] rejected arguments by the Kentucky prisoners also advanced in the California case - that the three-drug combination poses an unconstitutional risk of pain because there is an alternative. That alternative would be a single, massive dose of the sodium pentothal anesthetic already used in lethal injections, which could kill a prisoner painlessly but take longer than the current procedure.

The paralytic drug used in executions, pancuronium bromide, serves only to mask the pain of a conscious prisoner and is barred in most states in euthanasia on animals, the inmates' lawyers said.

So John Boy, (thanks for giving me this cool job Mr. President!) says a simple, easy way to do executions with less pain is available, but they won't mandate it using one of he most obnoxious arguments ever found in Supreme Court reasonings.

But Roberts said states are not required to switch to untested methods, such as one-drug executions. He said veterinary standards are "not an appropriate guide to humane practices for humans."

Well Chief Justice, Sir.  Why don't you mandate testing of that method and keep execution on the sidelines until the results are in.  But maybe that's too much trouble for the former Reinquist aide that used to brutalize his fellow players on the basketball court to mask his own poor sports skills.  It's another chance to throw oranges in the faces of people smaller or less powerful than you are isn't it Mr. R?

tags: john roberts  supreme court  human execution  

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