This Supreme Court ruling is exceptionally cruel

[spanone]

(CNN)Russell Bucklew is on death row in Missouri, and the United States Supreme Court just gave that state the go-ahead to kill him in one of the most torturous and cruel ways possible. Bucklew, who has a rare condition that leaves his body riddled with bleeding-prone tumors, will convulse, choke, and eventually suffocate on his own blood if he is executed by lethal injection, according to his lawyers. If this is true, his death will be slow. It will be brutal. It will be excruciatingly cruel.

And according to Neil Gorsuch and the other right-wing members of the Supreme Court, it will be legal, even in the face of the Eighth Amendment, which says in full, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Previously, the Supreme Court had, in accordance with the Eighth Amendment's bar on cruel and unusual punishment, held that inmates who would essentially be tortured by the standard methods of execution could be killed in another, less painful way. The court never required that executions be painless, and indeed recognized that killing a person usually means he feels some pain (this fact alone should disturb any decent human being). But previous iterations of the Supreme Court typically held that, where less potentially painful methods of execution were available, they should be used.

This court has gone in a different, exceptionally barbarous direction. As long as a state isn't intentionally trying to make an execution super-painful, they say, then it's fine. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern cuts to the chase, writing that with this decision, "five justices of the Supreme Court authorized Missouri to torture a man to death."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/opinions/supreme-court-cruel-death-row-ruling-filipovic/index.html

[PJMcK]

1. Capital punishment is wrong

A civilized society does not use the power of the state to execute its criminals.

The United States is not a civilized society. The use of the death penalty is just another example of our damaged country.

[dalton99a]

3. +1

[Bettie]

6. +1

Yes, it is.

[Celerity]

2. the death penalty itself is a barbarous relic

[Blues Heron]

4. the death penalty is the most cruel AND unusual punishment we have

how is it possibly legal?

[FBaggins]

5. Key words "if this is true"

I doubt they provided any evidence that it is true... because the AMA doesn't want doctors testifying in death penalty cases.

[Coventina]

7. Ugh. And this shows that we're morally superior to the criminal.......how?

[democratisphere]

8. We are no different than Saudi Arabia.

This is drumpfian SCOTUS justice.