Legalized Torture: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Cruel Lethal Injections

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n the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on June 29 to uphold the use of a questionable execution protocol in Oklahoma, virtually all of the justices in the majority and concurring opinions referenced the question of whether the defendant deserved to die (reaching varied conclusions). However, the Court's rendered opinion in Glossip v. Gross also makes clearer than ever before that we, as a society, do not deserve to kill.

The issue in Glossip centers on the use of a relatively new protocol in executions: the administration of 500 milligrams of midazolam, a sedative, followed by a second and third drug intended to kill. The use of midazolam became necessary after drug companies refused to provide sodium thiopental and pentobarbital (chemicals previously used in lethal injection procedures) to correctional facilities seeking to use those chemicals in executions.

In Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, three prisoners were visibly tortured to death with midazolam, as they gasped and writhed in apparent pain for between 10 minutes and two hours. The Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was aborted midway through when it was clear that he was not dying in the manner envisioned by the state. This sparked renewed outcry in the continuing debate about whether it is possible to carry out executions in a manner consistent with the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment. Contending that midazolam would not reliably render them unable to feel pain, Oklahoma death row prisoners filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent scheduled and future executions.

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As Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues in her pointed dissent, the majority's insistence on placing the burden of an adequate alternative on the petitioners leads to absurd and tragic consequences: "Petitioners contend that Oklahoma's current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment - the chemical equivalent of being burned alive ... But under the court's new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly trotted to death or actually burned at the stake."

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31656-legalized-torture-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-cruel-lethal-injections