Supreme Court Skeptical Of Lethal Injection Challenge

January 7, 2008 · Filed Under Legal News, U.S. News

The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing today to lawyers challenging the use of lethal injections to carry out executions in the United States.

The lawyers argued to the court that the three-chemical compound used in the injection causes inmates to die a painful death.

If these three drugs are “properly administered,” the inmate should die peacefully, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told a lawyer for a Kentucky death-row inmate.

More than 30 years ago, death-penalty states moved away from using electrocutions or the gas chamber to execute inmates and instead adopted lethal injections. At that time, and with little public debate, they decided to use a three-drug concoction. It includes an anesthetic, a paralyzing agent and a heart-stopping drug.

However, this formula has been cast into doubt in recent years. In the Kentucky case, defense lawyers argued that veterinarians do better with the use of a single, powerful barbiturate to put horses to death.

“The risk here is real,” that the drugs will not be administered correctly, argued Attorney Donald Verrilli Jr.

If the inmate is not given enough anesthetic and is then given a paralyzing drug, he may be fully awake on the execution table, yet unable to react when he is given a heart-stopping drug that causes searing pain, he said.

Justice Antonin Scalia said the defense lawyers are simply trying to stop executions. If the court agrees there are problems with Kentucky’s method, “this never ends,” Scalia said.

The Justices also said they didn’t think there was a better alternative to lethal injection.

I think a better solution than all of the methods for execution in the U.S. is to bring back hanging. The way Saddam was executed costs almost nothing, while a lethal injection costs the state thousands of dollars.

If a “Standard Drop Hanging” is done correctly it will cause the persons neck to break and they will die instantly. This was the method used on Saddam, and most of the Nazis convicted at Nuremberg.

-Chris Jones