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Let's Wait on the U.S. Supreme Court

By Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing

Yesterday, three Tennessee legislators called upon Governor Bredesen to move forward with the execution of Paul Dennis Reid who was convicted for the murders of seven people in the 1990's. The leaders urged the Governor to execute Reid by some other method available to the state, circumventing the controversy concerning the lethal injection protocols which will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The legislators claim that Tennessee requires the state to carry out executions by any other constitutional means when one method is unavailable due to a judicial ruling. Read more here.However, according to my reading of the Tennessee code, the state cannot move forward with Reid's execution by another method because Reid would either have to choose electrocution, waiving his right to lethal injection, or the courts would have to rule that lethal injection, as a method of execution, is unconstitutional...continue to full post

Full post as published by tcask:: on the road (to abolition) on January 04, 2008 (boomark / email).