Legal Commentary

Beldar on Baze

By Beldar

Today, in Baze v. Rees, the SCOTUS rejected two capital defendants' challenge to Kentucky's intended use of the "three-drug cocktail" for administering its death penalty. The vote was seven to two ? only Justices Ginsberg and Souter voted to reverse ? but no more than two justices agreed on any single rationale for affirming the Kentucky Supreme Court's decision to permit the continued use of this procedure. Instead, the Court produced seven separate opinions spanning 97 pages; only Justices Souter and Kennedy did not write a separate opinion.

Prof. Orin Kerr, blogging at The Volokh Conspiracy, promises a detailed post later, but there are interesting comments already to his quicky preliminary post here. Beldar's own summary (admittedly guilty of over-generalization, for your convenience and my amusement):

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).