Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 13, 2006 21:05:35 GMT -5
Decision could affect Texas appeals from condemned convicts.
In a case that promises to spark new legal assaults on Texas' method of lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ensured that condemned convicts have a tool to challenge the three-drug thingytail as too painful - and possibly have it outlawed.
In its unanimous decision in a Florida case, the high court permitted last-minute challenges concerning that method of execution, though the court stopped short of saying whether the method is so painful it constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment prohibited under the U.S. Constitution.
As the first state to carry out a lethal injection in 1982, Texas
developed the 3-drug procedure that other states have since adopted.
Death penalty opponents cheered the decision. They saw it as a step toward the 1st review by the high court of the legality of lethal injection as it is practiced by Texas and 36 other states.
"It is significant in that it sends a message that the court is serious about this issue, even if it's a procedural decision," said Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor in New York who has extensively studied the legalities of the current method of lethal injection. "I think it will cause departments of corrections across the country to review their procedure, to make sure it does not cause gratuitous or unnecessary pain."
Texas officials reiterated earlier assurances that the state's method of lethal injection is legal but said they would review the ruling. "We would have to review the court's findings before determining whether or not our process would warrant possible changes," said Michelle Lyons, chief spokeswomen for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Victim advocacy groups branded the ruling as little more than a new hurdle that may do little but delay some executions.
"It's a procedural decision, not a decision attacking the thingytail
itself," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, an Austin attorney who is vice president for legislative affairs for Justice for All, a Houston-based national crime victims' advocacy group. "They're telling inmates: You've got the right to appeal, dude, but you either use it or lose it. There's no guarantee you'll win."
Texas' lethal injection procedure uses sodium thiopental as a sedative, the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide to collapse the diaphragm and lungs and potassium chloride to stop the heart. In recent years, an increasing number of condemned convicts have unsuccessfully challenged the method as too painful.
Justices have never ruled on the legality of a specific type of execution, and legal experts have predicted that a decision like Monday's could presage a constitutional showdown over how lethal injection is carried out.
The ruling allows condemned inmates to make special federal court claims that the chemicals used in executions are unconstitutionally painful. It was a slap to the Bush administration and 25 states, which supported Florida in arguing that allowing new appeals would jeopardize finality and justice for victims' families.
More than 3,300 convicts nationally are facing a death sentence, including 400 in Texas - 391 men and nine women. Texas has executed 366 people since it reopened its death chamber 24 years ago, more than any other state.
Monday's decision came in an appeal filed by Florida death row convict Clarence Hill, a convicted cop killer whose execution was halted in January by the Supreme Court after he had been strapped to the death gurney and intravenous lines had been inserted into his veins.
With his regular appeals having run out, Hill asserted that he had the right under a civil rights law to challenge the method of execution in a last-minute appeal.
The high court agreed. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in Monday's court ruling that, though Hill and other convicts can file special appeals, they may not be entitled to a delay in their execution. "Both the state and the victims of crime have an important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence," he wrote.
Kennedy noted that Hill is not claiming he cannot be executed, only that a less painful method should be used. Hill is challenging the three-drug thingytail, which Florida officials said they adopted based on Texas' procedure.
In Monday's ruling, Kennedy wrote for the court, "Hill's challenge appears to leave the state free to use an alternative lethal injection procedure."
In April, when the high court took up Hill's case, justices appeared
concerned about the possibility of pain in Florida's method of lethal injection. Justice John Paul Stevens told Florida's lawyer at the time that the procedure would be banned from use to euthanize cats and dogs.
Since the Supreme Court took up Hill's case, executions have been stopped in California, Missouri and Maryland amid questions about the lethal injection procedure.
The court's last death penalty decision came two years ago in an Alabama appeal.
In that case, the justices approved a last-minute appeal of a death row inmate who argued that his execution by lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because his veins would be damaged. Kennedy wrote in Monday's ruling that the high court was reaffirming the precedent set in the Alabama case.
The Alabama convict has not been executed.
Denno said the civil rights law is more favorable to convicts who are challenging the execution method. "Hill is 'every inmate' in many respects," she said.
Amid the increasing legal challenges, Texas officials have steadfastly defended the three-drug thingytail as a legal method of official death - if not painless, than as painless as possible. Condemned inmates are usually pronounced dead about 7 minutes after the injection begins.
11 convicts have been executed this year in Texas.
(source: Austin American Statesman)
In a case that promises to spark new legal assaults on Texas' method of lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ensured that condemned convicts have a tool to challenge the three-drug thingytail as too painful - and possibly have it outlawed.
In its unanimous decision in a Florida case, the high court permitted last-minute challenges concerning that method of execution, though the court stopped short of saying whether the method is so painful it constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment prohibited under the U.S. Constitution.
As the first state to carry out a lethal injection in 1982, Texas
developed the 3-drug procedure that other states have since adopted.
Death penalty opponents cheered the decision. They saw it as a step toward the 1st review by the high court of the legality of lethal injection as it is practiced by Texas and 36 other states.
"It is significant in that it sends a message that the court is serious about this issue, even if it's a procedural decision," said Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor in New York who has extensively studied the legalities of the current method of lethal injection. "I think it will cause departments of corrections across the country to review their procedure, to make sure it does not cause gratuitous or unnecessary pain."
Texas officials reiterated earlier assurances that the state's method of lethal injection is legal but said they would review the ruling. "We would have to review the court's findings before determining whether or not our process would warrant possible changes," said Michelle Lyons, chief spokeswomen for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Victim advocacy groups branded the ruling as little more than a new hurdle that may do little but delay some executions.
"It's a procedural decision, not a decision attacking the thingytail
itself," said William "Rusty" Hubbarth, an Austin attorney who is vice president for legislative affairs for Justice for All, a Houston-based national crime victims' advocacy group. "They're telling inmates: You've got the right to appeal, dude, but you either use it or lose it. There's no guarantee you'll win."
Texas' lethal injection procedure uses sodium thiopental as a sedative, the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide to collapse the diaphragm and lungs and potassium chloride to stop the heart. In recent years, an increasing number of condemned convicts have unsuccessfully challenged the method as too painful.
Justices have never ruled on the legality of a specific type of execution, and legal experts have predicted that a decision like Monday's could presage a constitutional showdown over how lethal injection is carried out.
The ruling allows condemned inmates to make special federal court claims that the chemicals used in executions are unconstitutionally painful. It was a slap to the Bush administration and 25 states, which supported Florida in arguing that allowing new appeals would jeopardize finality and justice for victims' families.
More than 3,300 convicts nationally are facing a death sentence, including 400 in Texas - 391 men and nine women. Texas has executed 366 people since it reopened its death chamber 24 years ago, more than any other state.
Monday's decision came in an appeal filed by Florida death row convict Clarence Hill, a convicted cop killer whose execution was halted in January by the Supreme Court after he had been strapped to the death gurney and intravenous lines had been inserted into his veins.
With his regular appeals having run out, Hill asserted that he had the right under a civil rights law to challenge the method of execution in a last-minute appeal.
The high court agreed. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in Monday's court ruling that, though Hill and other convicts can file special appeals, they may not be entitled to a delay in their execution. "Both the state and the victims of crime have an important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence," he wrote.
Kennedy noted that Hill is not claiming he cannot be executed, only that a less painful method should be used. Hill is challenging the three-drug thingytail, which Florida officials said they adopted based on Texas' procedure.
In Monday's ruling, Kennedy wrote for the court, "Hill's challenge appears to leave the state free to use an alternative lethal injection procedure."
In April, when the high court took up Hill's case, justices appeared
concerned about the possibility of pain in Florida's method of lethal injection. Justice John Paul Stevens told Florida's lawyer at the time that the procedure would be banned from use to euthanize cats and dogs.
Since the Supreme Court took up Hill's case, executions have been stopped in California, Missouri and Maryland amid questions about the lethal injection procedure.
The court's last death penalty decision came two years ago in an Alabama appeal.
In that case, the justices approved a last-minute appeal of a death row inmate who argued that his execution by lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because his veins would be damaged. Kennedy wrote in Monday's ruling that the high court was reaffirming the precedent set in the Alabama case.
The Alabama convict has not been executed.
Denno said the civil rights law is more favorable to convicts who are challenging the execution method. "Hill is 'every inmate' in many respects," she said.
Amid the increasing legal challenges, Texas officials have steadfastly defended the three-drug thingytail as a legal method of official death - if not painless, than as painless as possible. Condemned inmates are usually pronounced dead about 7 minutes after the injection begins.
11 convicts have been executed this year in Texas.
(source: Austin American Statesman)