Supreme Court to consider constitutionality of lethal injection

Published: 2007-09-26

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Sept. 25 to hear oral arguments on whether lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The case before the court directly involves only Kentucky death-row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., but it could have far-reaching implications throughout the United States. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 928 of the nearly 1,100 U.S. executions since 1976 have been by lethal injection. Father Pat Delahanty, a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., who chairs the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, applauded the high court's decision in a statement and said it was ironic that the announcement was made on the same day that Baze was to have been executed. The Kentucky Supreme Court had stayed the execution Sept. 12. At issue is whether the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injections in Kentucky and other states violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Opponents of the method say the combination of an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer and a drug to stop the heart can cause unbearable pain that the inmates are not able to signal because of their paralysis.

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