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Spinning Baze for lower courts

By Douglas A. Berman

Elisabeth Semel has this new piece in The National Law Journal, headlined "Fearing too much justice," which tries its darnedest to argue that Baze should be viewed by lower courts and state officials not as a green light for resuming lethal injection executions, but rather as a yellow light calling for additional caution and inquiry concerning modern execution realities: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s plurality opinion establishes that the court is primarily concerned with whether states are able to successfully administer the first drug in the three-drug formula ? the anesthetic.  Failure of that first drug results in a "constitutionally unacceptable" risk of suffocation and excruciating pain.   On the limited facts before the court, Roberts took the view that delivery of the anesthetic is a relatively simple endeavor...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 09, 2008 (boomark / email).