Supreme Court's Pending Decision has Wide Ripple

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case questioning the humanity of lethal injection, which is used by 37 of 38 states to carry out executions. The suit was brought by two Kentucky death row inmates, who are arguing that the process of lethal injection causes severe pain, and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Litigation of this sort has already affected current capital punishment proceedings in nine states, and this specific hearing has led to both Oklahoma’s attorney general calling for a delay to executions in his state and a likely, if temporary, slowdown in the rate of Texas’ executions. It is unlikely that this ruling will affect the constitutionality of capital punishment in general, as it is likely to focus the very specific question of how painful and human the drugs used to kill the inmate are not on the humanity of taking a life in general.