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US Supreme Court Agrees to Address Constitutionality of Kentucky Lethal Injection Protocol

The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear the Kentucky case of Baze v. Rees, which challenges the constitutionality of Kentucky's standard 3-drug lethal injection protocol.  This has potentially huge ramifications.  Although the Supreme Court ruled last term that death row inmates have the right to challenge the constitutionality of methods of execution, this will be the first occasion for the court to actually consider whether lethal injection as practiced by most states violates the 8th Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."  Today's grant of certiorari in the Baze case could thus conceivably put a halt to lethal injections across the U.S. pending a ruling in the case sometime next year; and whatever that ruling is will likely determine the outcome of the Ohio challenge to lethal injection in the Cooey v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Ohio Death Penalty Information on September 25, 2007 (boomark / email).