Supreme Court upholds Death Penalty lethal injection ruling (10th Circuit)

[brooklynite]

Because capital punishment is constitutional, there must be a constitutional means of carrying it out. After Oklahoma adopted lethal injection as its method of execution, it settled on a three-drug protocol of (1) sodium thiopental (a barbiturate) to induce a state of unconsciousness, (2) a paralytic agent to inhibit all muscular-skeletal movements, and (3) potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest.

In Baze v. Rees, 553 U. S. 35, the Court held that this protocol does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. Anti-death-penalty advocates then pressured pharmaceutical companies to prevent sodium thiopental (and, later,
another barbiturate called pentobarbital) from being used in executions.

Unable to obtain either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, Oklahoma decided to use a 500-milligram dose of midazolam, a sedative,
as the first drug in its three-drug protocol.

Oklahoma death-row inmates filed a 42 U. S. C. §1983 action claiming that the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment.
Four of those inmates filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and argued that a 500-milligram dose of midazolam will not render them unable to feel pain associated with administration of the second and third drugs. After a three-day evidentiary hearing, the District Court denied the motion. It held that the prisoners failed to identify a known and available alternative method of execution that presented a substantially less severe risk of pain. It also held that the prisoners failed to establish a likelihood of showing that the use of midazolam
created a demonstrated risk of severe pain. The Tenth Circuit affirmed.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf

Opinion by Alito; Scalia concurs, as does Thomas (joined by Scalia)

Breyer dissents, joined by RBG

Sotomayor dissents, joined by RBG, Breyer, and Kagan.

[Runningdawg]

1. Maybe someone has this answer...

Do deceased inmates undergo autopsy to determine ACTUAL cause of death?
As cheap as this state (OK) is, I doubt it would do it anyhow. But again, remembering how cheap and cruel they are, I am wondering if any "approved" drugs are being used at all. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the "cause of death" from execution in OK is poisoning - by whatever the executioner happened to find in janitors closet that morning.