Court upholds Kentucky's lethal injections - This is breaking.
The Supreme Court has upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injections for executions.
The justices, in a fractured decision, rejected a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates.
The split in the 7 to 2 opinion is as follows:
Roberts’ opinion was joined in full by only two Justices, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Anthony M. Kennedy. Four other Justices joined the result only — John Paul Stevens, who concurred; Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas who each concurred and also joined each other’s concurrence, and Stephen G. Breyer, who concurred. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice David H. Souter, dissented.
Most executions have been on hold since this case was taken up by the Supreme Court last year. I am guessing they will resume now.
From SCOTUS Blog:
In a widely splintered decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for death-row executions to resume across the country, concluding that the most common method of lethal injection does not violate the Constitution. The final vote was 7-2 in Baze v. Rees (07-5439), although there was no opinion that spoke for five or more Justices. The Court’s plurality adopted as a standard for assessing the validity of an execution method whether it poses a "substantial risk of serious harm." It rejected the death row inmate’s proposal that the standard be "unnecessary risk."
While the opinion appeared to leave open a chance that some further challenges could be made to the use of lethal drugs under a specific procedure in another state, it rejected a challenge to the method as used in Kentucky which is fairly close to the protocol used in 36 states and by the federal government.
Looks like it was a bigger majority than I expected.
Also thanks to burrow owl for:
Plurality: Roberts, joined by Alito and Kennedy.
Concurrences: Breyer, Stevens, and Scalia (joined by Thomas)
Dissent: Ginsburg, joined by Souter
And a better link to The New York Times
Hopefully there will be an FP analysis forthcoming.