Supreme Court to Consider Lethal Injection

In 2004, Ralph S. Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. sued the state of Kentucky claiming that lethal injection is equal to cruel and unusual punishment. They are both death row inmates at the Kentucky State Penitentiary. On Tuesday, September 25, 2007, the Supreme Court agreed to examine the case of whether lethal injections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Out of the thirty eight states with the death penalty most of them use some type of lethal injection. Experts say that this Supreme Court consideration will stop executions until the court makes a final decision. Earlier the court had ruled that inmates could challenge lethal injection in federal courts. The petition asked the Court to accept their case because many inmates had already tried to go to the federal courts.

In 1878, Wilkerson vs. Utah was the first death penalty case to reach the Supreme Court. The method of execution being argued was death by firing squad, which is today still a method that remains an option in Utah. Wilkerson thought that death by firing squad broke the Eighth Amendment. Justice Clifford, of the Supreme Court, stated that Utah had several execution methods available, such as being shot, hung, or beheaded. Clifford said that if no method of execution has been stated, then states are free to use any option as long as it is not cruel and unusual. Clifford explained that cruel and unusual punishment only related to torture. Execution by fire squad was not cruel and unusual punishment because others, like the military, have used it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092500680.html?hpid=topnews

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