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A month after Baze, has anything really changed?

By Douglas A. Berman

Two articles this morning about on-going lethal injection litigation confirm my sense that the Supreme Court's Baze decision has done remarkably little to alter the legal fights over execution protocols or broader debates over the death penalty.  This article from the Washington Post discusses a Fourth Circuit oral argument concerning Virginia's lethal injection process, and it shows lawyers and judges are still talking about whether a one-drug protocol ought to replace the current three-drug approach.  Similarly, this article from the News Journal discusses a federal district judge's plans to conduct essentially a full bench trial in order to examine the particulars of Delaware's lethal injection protocol. Of course, last month's Baze decision upholding Kentucky's use of a three-drug execution protocol did finally enable states to resume plans for executions, and Georgia even managed to carry out a lethal injection last week...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).