Will Most Executions Be Halted?
Is injecting deadly medicine into a condemned criminal an unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual punishment?" That's what the Supreme Court has again agreed to decide this term. Do you think the Court will permit execution by lethal injection to continue?
That's the issue the Supreme Court has agreed to take up in its new term, when it will hear arguments challenging Kentucky's method of capital punishment.
"This is huge news," Ohio State law professor Douglas A. Berman is quoted as saying in today's New York Times, where he contended that it "could (and probably should) lead to a de facto moratorium on all lethal-injection executions nationwide until the Supreme Court issues a ruling."
Public defender David M. Barron, who represented both defendants, was also enthusiastic about today's new. "This is probably one of the most important cases in decades, as it relates to the death penalty," the BBC quoted him as saying this morning.
Both cases involved in the appeal granted certiorari by the Supreme Court today stem from a 2004 Kentucky case involving Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr.
Until the case is decided, many observers expect pending executions by lethal injection to be in suspense.
Do you think the Court will permit execution by lethal injection to continue? Should it?
Selected stories on capital punishment: + Is Lethal Injection Cruel?
+ Executions: Endless Wait?
+ U.S. Gets Criminals from México
+ Teen Gets Life !
+ World Outrage at Saddam Execution
+ Death Sentence for Tattoos
[Views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of CompuServe, Netscape, any government, agency, or news organization.]
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