US Executions Get Green Light

EXECUTIONS in Texas, Alabama and other southern states with large death rows are likely to resume shortly after a US Supreme Courts decision upholding Kentuckys method of killing condemned prisoners.

In a 7-2 vote, the court threw out a claim by two inmates in Kentucky that a three-drug cocktail amounted to unconstitutional "cruel and unusual punishment".

The challenge had resulted in a moratorium on executions in America from last September. But within two hours of the ruling, Virginian Governor Timothy Kaine lifted the states suspension.

Inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling had argued that if the injection process went wrong, it could result in horrific suffering, such as in botched executions in Florida and California where inmates took 30 minutes to die.

The inmates 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.

Critics of the triple injection say that if the initial dose of anaesthetic is inadequate, the subsequent drugs can cause excruciating pain while the paralysing drug prevents the inmate from showing discomfort.

The courts ruling did not address the constitutional aspect of the death penalty, and left the door open to future challenges to lethal injection if a state refused to adopt an alternative method that was shown to significantly reduce the risk of severe pain.

Justice John Paul Stevens said the courts decision would not end the debate over lethal injection.

David Fathi, the director of Human Rights Watchs US program, said the ruling was "not a green light for executions" and urged states not to "engage in an unseemly rush to execute in response to this decision".

The ruling "explicitly holds out the possibility that states may be obliged to adopt a more humane method", he said.

Legal experts said the decision may slow executions elsewhere in the country, as lawyers for death-row inmates undertake fresh challenges based on its newly announced legal standards.

"The decision will have the effect of widening the divide between executing states and symbolic states — states that have the death penalty on the books but rarely carry out executions," said Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas.

George Kendall, a lawyer who is an authority on capital litigation, said the effect of the Kentucky decision, Baze v Rees, "is going to vary greatly".

"I bet you by this time next week there will be execution dates in Texas and Alabama," Mr Kendall said. "But nothing is going to happen very quickly in California at all."

Supporters of the death penalty welcomed the decision, though they suggested that it could have been more definitive.

"Its true that they didnt completely slam the door and lock it," said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which advocates strong criminal penalties. "But I expect that the de facto moratorium will end this year, and in most states executions will resume."

Opponents of the death penalty said the decision was little more than a road map for more litigation. "I think it opens the door," said Elisabeth Semel, the director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley.

Thirty-five states and the Federal Government use lethal injections in executions, most if not all of them relying on a combination of three chemicals: a sedative, a paralysing agent and a drug that stops the heart.

More than 40 stays have been issued in lethal-injection cases by various courts, 17 of them since the Supreme Court agreed in September to hear Baze, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Those stays will presumably now be dissolved.

NEW YORK TIMES, TELEGRAPH

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?