Supreme Court Upholds Use Of Lethal Injection
I don’t know, seems to me the most humane way to kill someone is a bullet through the head. Get four gunmen standing behind the prisoner seated in a chair. Load one of the four weapons with a blank, and have the four of them fire at once at a designated spot on the back of the skull.
I can’t imagine a person feeling any pain or suffering in that situation.
Of course this would mean closed-casket funerals, but just call that part of the sentence.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s use of lethal injection executions Wednesday, likely clearing the way to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 8 months.
The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.
“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, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion that garnered only three votes. Four other justices, however, agreed with the outcome.
Roberts’ opinion did leave open subsequent challenges to lethal injection practices if a state refused to adopt an alternative method that significantly reduced the risk of severe pain.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.
Executions have been on hold since September, when the court agreed to hear the Kentucky case. There was no immediate indication when they would resume.
The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of those drugs, a paralytic, would render the prisoner unable to express his discomfort.
The case before the court came from Kentucky, where two death row inmates did not ask to be spared execution or death by injection. Instead, they wanted the court to order a switch to a single drug, a barbiturate, that causes no pain and can be given in a large enough dose to cause death.
At the very least, they said, the state should be required to impose tighter controls on the three-drug process to ensure that the anesthetic is given properly.
Roberts said the one-drug method, frequently used in animal euthanasia, “has problems of its own, and has never been tried by a single state.”
Kentucky has had only one execution by lethal injection and it did not present any obvious problems, both sides in the case agreed.
But executions elsewhere, in Florida and Ohio, took much longer than usual, with strong indications that the prisoners suffered severe pain in the process. Workers had trouble inserting the IV lines that are used to deliver the drugs.
Roberts said “a condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a state’s method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative.”
Ginsburg, in her dissent, said she would ask Kentucky courts to consider whether the state includes adequate safeguards to ensure a prisoner is unconscious and thus unlikely to suffer severe pain.
(Fox)
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Hell Yeah . . . let’s get on with it now.
NEXT: Jose Ernesto Medellin @ Huntsville
April 16th, 2008 at 9:47 amhonestly, as punishment for the pain and suffering and havoc they brought to this earth, who the fuck cares if it hurts them or not?
as long as they don’t show it and horrify the victims families of the scumbag, then fuck it!!
personally i’d like to see them die by the same methods they inflicted on their victims. but who the fuck could they find sick enough to do that?
April 16th, 2008 at 9:50 amIts a fricken three drug process!! That alone in itself is way to nice for the bastards. I don’t really care but to have to numb them 2 ways before killing them is stupid. Just inject them with nicotine or something that you don’t need a lot of to kill them.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:24 amThey should hang them instead.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:44 amThe perps are getting off too easy. Lethal injection is too easy for these maggots. Hanging is better.
The bullet to the base of the skull is also good. It severs all the nerves and destroys the areas that govern the heart and breathing. Very quick. Still too good for much of the scum on death row.
Bring back ‘ol sparky.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:30 amWhat seems to have been lost track of here, intentionally by the libtards, is the founding fathers referred to cruel and unusual punishment in a logical way. You know, protect the truly mentally ill, no long drawn out tortuous death penalties. I think except for the seriously demented libs, that was meant to refer to hours or days long drawn out torturing leading to death.
I feel they meant get it done and over with as quickly as possible, not to do it is an antiseptic way.
Hell, those two guys just wanted to go out on an overdose, hoping to go to sleep high and happy. Who are they trying to kid.
Yeah, firing squad, quick and to the point. Hanging, could possibly be drawn out if the neck isn’t broken, Ol’ Sparky? well anyone who has seen the long green mile can pretty much guess… but still all viable options in my book.
Justice has forgotten to take into consideration the victims in these cases. The choices teh murderers made. Kill someone high on dope? Sorry mental illness or incapacitated doesn’t cut it, same for drunk drivers killing someone. It was murder, homicide, however you want to look at it.
Some referred to Lonsesome Dove weeks ago.. you ride with outlaws, you die with outlaws…
April 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pmI can’t imagine a person feeling any pain or suffering in that situation.
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Their victims would have welcomed the prick of an ER needle or two in order to save their lives …
I ain’t into “painless” for these bastards.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
caligula; me. for years I’ve been telling people that we should kill the criminal in the same manner he killed his victims; can you say ‘deterrent’.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:01 pm