In case you didn't hear, on Monday the Supreme Court granted cert in a number of intriguing cases this term. I want to bring to your attention Baze v. Rees. According to some, this case has the potential to make the most sweeping changes in death penalty law in decades.
The law professors at http://sentencing.ty...
This is huge news which could (and probably should) lead to a de facto moratorium on all lethal injection executions nationwide until the Supreme Court issues a ruling (which might not come until June 2008).
The specific issue is whether lethal injection cocktails which potentially cause pain and suffering violate the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
As Lyle Denniston notes at http://www.scotusblo...
Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty as a constitutional matter, the overwhelming majority of executions have been carried out with lethal drugs -- 927 executions, compared to 154 by the electric chair, 11 by the gas chamber, three by hanging and two by firing squad -- according to data provided by the Death Penalty Information Center in its current summary.
The Supreme Court, even the Roberts court, has come down on the "liberal" side of death penalty issues in recent years. It held unconstitutional the execution of persons who were juveniles when committing murder, Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), mentally retarded persons, Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), and just last term the court decided four promising cases. In Panetti v. Quarterman, Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority that the 5th Circuit had used an overly restrictive definition of insanity in the context of sentencing. The Court also overturned 3 Texas death penalty sentences when the jury had been prevented from hearing certain mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing.
My guess is that death penalty opponents will see a big victory on this one. Justice Kennedy, the swing vote, has taken an internationalist approach on this issue, and has personally written many of the landmark death penalty opinions in the past decade. No doubt, he realizes that the death penalty is considered by much of the world a human rights violation, and that the U.S. is in very poor company (Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, the Congo).
At any rate, you'll be hearing more about this one!