Divided Supreme Court rules against death row inmate with rare condition

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

By Robert Barnes April 1 at 11:23 AM

A divided Supreme Court said Monday that a Missouri death row inmate had not shown that a rare medical condition would render his execution by injection cruel and unusual punishment, though dissenters said he could choke on his own blood during the procedure.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that Russell Bucklew, convicted 22 years ago for murder, failed to show that his suffering would be exceptional and that he had not identified another manner of execution that would be better.

“The Eighth Amendment has never been understood to guarantee a condemned inmate a painless death,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said in announcing the decision from the bench. “That’s a luxury not guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.

“What the Eighth Amendment does guarantee is a method of execution that not ‘cruel and unusual.’”

-snip-


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/divided-supreme-court-rules-against-death-row-inmate-with-rare-condition/2019/04/01/ff523fdc-5489-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html

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Related: 17-8151 Bucklew v. Precythe (Supreme Court of the United States)

[Honeycombe8]

1. It's time.

The prisoner has delayed his execution many times, the news says. Now he has a propensity to have blood-filled tumors in his throat.

The court, when ruling to go ahead, said that the prisoner did not offer any court-approved alternate method, such as a firing squad, when he could have. Instead, he suggested gas, which has not been approved by modern courts as an alternate method of execution.
This had something to do with their ruling. I guess they were thinking this was just another delay tactic, and so was the gas alternate, which may have had to go thru the court system to get approved.

In any case, it's time. It's 20 years since he killed that man, shot at his gf's child, and then kidnapped and raped & beat up his gf, as well as caused a shoot-out with the law who tried to apprehend him, wounding the officer.

[zipplewrath]

2. Sorry

The death penalty is wrong.

[Honeycombe8]

3. Since it's the law and that's his sentence, it's time for him to pay for his crimes.

I'm okay w/the death penalty in certain cases. But whether I am or not, it's the law, and that was determined to be his sentence.

[qazplm135]

4. Saying

"it's the law" is almost always the least persuasive thing you can do.

Plenty of things were "the law."
Segregation was "the law."

[Honeycombe8]

6. I wish you were as sympathetic with the man he murdered, the boy he shot at,

and the woman he kidnapped, beat up, and raped, and the officer he shot.

That man received a death sentence. He did not die right away. He bled to death.

It didn't JUST say "it's the law." I said I was okay with it in certain circumstances. I also said that that was determined to be his sentence, so it's time he pay for his crimes, after delay after delay over 20 years.

Many judges and a jury have determined this would be his sentence. There's no telling what his record was before he went on this night of terror. This is in no way like segregation. This man isn't even black, so the disparity in the death sentence of black men doesn't apply.

There is 100% certainty he did the crimes. It's not even possible that this could ever be a case where he's not guilty.

[qazplm135]

7. non sequitor

1. Has nothing to do with sympathy. I was merely responding to the "it's the law" argument as being quite frankly intellectually lazy. If you want to argue WHY the law is correct in this case, feel free. If you want to argue FOR the Supreme Court decision, feel free. Saying "it's the law" is insipid.

2. The death penalty is not a topic that is properly analyzed using emotional arguments. I could as easily point to the innocent people who have been killed. Do you have sympathy for them? How many innocent people must die so you can feel morally clean about executing this guy? Many judges and a jury have found innocent people guilty and they've been killed too.
See, I can make emotional arguments too.

3. Having said 2, the reality is that the DP is not a 100% fool-proof system. Innocent people WILL be executed. So, to have a DP system is to have, by definition, a system that executes at least some innocent people. Unless you have a system in mind that will make 100% sure only the truly deserving and guilty will get it? Or do you have a system where the rich or whites won't get it less than the poor or people of color? Because if you don't have either, then you are saying, I'm ok with a system where the innocent are killed and the poor and POC are more likely to be killed than whites are. You can't bifurcate it and say well...with this guy, he REALLY is guilty so I'm ok with it, because he's not an individual event, he's part of a system.

so yes, the fact that he "isn't black" doesn't mean that the "disparity in the death sentence of black men doesn't apply." It's built into the system that resulted in this man's death. He wasn't part of some separate, non-biased system.

Justice isn't about sympathy. It's about justice. Justice is served by the removal of the offender from society. Put him in a cell. Deprive him. Require him to focus on the brutality of what he has done. There are all sorts of ways to make him recompense for the lives he took. Killing him only satisfies revenge. And if that were all it did, I'd not care all that much. The reality is the system that we use to kill him is racist, biased against the poor, and even sexist (the rare case where men are at a disadvantage here)...and perhaps most important, guaranteed to kill innocent people.

but hey, if you get to exercise your sympathy for the victims...well, I'm sure that's worth a few innocent lives.

[mountain grammy]

10. Well said, thank you.

[MicaelS]

39. I could accept prohibiting the DP...

Substituting life without parole, in solitary for the worst ones. No exceptions, no excuses.

But, as soon as we did, people with the Anti-DP mindset would claim THAT was cruel and unusual punishment.

Some people are simply not worth the time or money to attempt to rehabilitate them.

I do not want murderers out walking the streets, even if they are 80 years old

[qazplm135]

41. I'm not sure the need for solitary

what's the point of that? I think the proper path is to make every moment of their life about reflection and service to others. Drain every drop of utility.

But no, no "anti-DP mindset person" is out there saying we should let the worst of the worst back out on the street unless they are an extreme outlier and every group ever has those.

You've created a strawman.

[avebury]

14. Would you say "It's the law" to the gay man who might have

gotten the death sentence from a jury because he was gay?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/113752030


What about a case where DNA testing proves that someone on death row did not commit the crime that he was convicted off?

https://www.businessinsider.com/antonin-scalia-says-executing-the-innocent-is-constitutional-2014-9

[Kurt V.]

26. this ruling goes way beyond this man. it is sick and sadistic.

[Botany]

5. If the law is on the books then this guy needs it.

I am against the D.P. because it costs too much, takes way too long, and in more than once
case people have been found innocent who were on death row but it is time for him to die
is now. He shot a man who stepped between him and his girl friend's child who he was shooting
at so I find no sympathy for him.

http://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/bucklew-russell.htm

[Judi Lynn]

8. The death penalty will always be wrong, period. Everyone knows it.

How the US moved from a country in the 1960's which was progressing in the direction of an enlightened society, as states started turning away from the death penalty, and headed directly back into ignorant, reactionary, murderous violence is a nightmare.

Executions will NEVER be a moral answer to anything, and the law most surely has to be moral, or it's an evil joke.



Earlier Russell Bucklew



More recent Russell Bucklew

Wouldn't matter if he's sick or not, it doesn't matter that he has taken life, himself.

It's wrong to officially murder him "back."

[FBaggins]

9. You'll have to take that up with the states... not SCOTUS

The states can individually halt the practice and/or the Constitution can be amended... but the Supreme Court doesn't have much choice in the matter.

[qazplm135]

12. Interesting

because I was almost certain in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court shut down all DP cases from 72-76.

I was also pretty sure later Supreme Court cases disallowed the DP for rape, then child rape, and for the mentally infirmed/ill and under 18.

What am I missing vis-a-vis the Supreme Court's choice in this matter?

[FBaggins]

13. What you're missing

In Furman, only two of the nine justices claimed that the DP itself was unconstitutional.

The court can work all around the edges on whether a particular method is acceptable or whether a certain class of defendant cannot be sufficiently culpable... but they can't (without usurping authority they don't have) rule that DP itself is unconstitutional.

[qazplm135]

18. ok...that was one case

all 9 could, in theory, declare the DP itself is unconstitutional.

You are dead wrong that they could not. They absolutely could.

[FBaggins]

21. Just like the President could push "the button" right now. He absolutely could

Without Congressional authorization, it would be unconstitutional... but he could still do it.

All nine could declare that Congress is unconstitutional if they wanted to... but it too would still be outside of their Constitutional powers.

The Constitution clearly and unequivocally says that the DP is constitutional... because the 5th Amendment declares that you can't get the death penalty without an indictment by a grand jury. Obviously, if it was unconstitutional, there would be no reason to have that there at all.

So the question for you is why would we even have an amendment process in the constitution if you think that five justices can change it on a whim?

[qazplm135]

22. my mind is boggled right now

exactly how would it be "unconstitutional" for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the death penalty under the 8th Amendment?

The Constitution does not "clearly and unequivocally" say much of anything at all...it's why we have had 200+ years of fertile jurisprudence over it. It most certainly does not "clearly and unequivocally" say that "the death penalty is constitutional."
The fifth amendment says you cannot deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process.

If the Supreme Court determines there is no way to do the requisite due process to allow deprivation of life, then guess what, the DP is illegal. Which...wait for it...is exactly what happened in 1972. No one said that ruling was unconstitutional, and once a system was put in place that satisfied 5/9 justices, it came back into being. Neither ruling was "on a whim." Then it was based on racial disparity in part. Spoiler alert...it could just as easily be based on racial disparity now (as well as socio-economic and gender). It could also be based on the verified fact that we've executed innocent people. There's plenty of "not a whim" bases upon which to rule that the current due process is insufficient to meet the requirements of the fifth amendment.

5/9 justices now or in the future can decide that the system actually doesn't satisfy the necessary DP requirements and it will go right back out again.

I mean at this point, I'd probably stop. I'm pretty sure you are not a constitutional law scholar, or even a lawyer. I won't pretend to be the former, but I'm certainly the latter who has worked on several DP cases at the trial and appellate level and been both a defense counsel and prosecutor. I feel pretty comfortable I understand the basics of how an appellate court works and how the Supreme Court works being barred there and all.

[FBaggins]

24. Lots of text... but no answer to the key question

Once again... why does the constitution even HAVE an amendment process if there is nothing that cannot be changed by judicial fiat? Can they abolish the Executive branch? Can they merge us with Canada?

The fifth amendment says you cannot deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process.

And why doesn't it say just "cannot be deprived of life"???

Which...wait for it...is exactly what happened in 1972.

Nope. Try again.

I mean at this point, I'd probably stop. I'm pretty sure you are not a constitutional law scholar

Well... this is the internet, so I suppose we can claim to be whatever we like.

[qazplm135]

25. lol I get that a lot of words may confuse you

but the answer to the key question is all over my response. Maybe try reading it again?

It "doesn't just say cannot be deprived of life" (or liberty or property) because, in theory, you COULD deprive someone of those things IF you have the requisite due process.

IF you do NOT have the requisite due process then you CAN'T deprive someone of liberty property or...wait for it...life.

So, guess who determines if in fact you have the requisite due process for each of those things.

It's not the executive branch. It's not the legislative branch.

Who could it be??!

Do tell what happened in 1972 then. Because I thought the Supreme Court ruled that the current paradigm was not...again, wait for it...good enough due process and suspended the DP until there was. But you are clearly the constitutional law scholar so tell us what really happened then.

[FBaggins]

28. You're running in circles

It "doesn't just say cannot be deprived of life" (or liberty or property) because, in theory, you COULD deprive someone of those things IF you have the requisite due process.

How strange... that was my point. You were the one arguing that they had the power to say that the DP itself was unconstitutional. IOW, essentially a facial challenge rather than as-applied. They can look at any as-applied challenge and rule that process unconstitutional. That wouldn't be changing anything about 5A... it would be enforcing 5A.

What they lack is the power to say that NO process can satisfy the test or that ALL POSSIBLE forms of DP are cruel an unusual. They can't say that the DP itself is unconstitutional for the same reason that they can't declare that all searches are reasonable.

[qazplm135]

29. sigh...it's like explaining quantum physics to a cat...

again, no your point wasn't that they COULD find the DP legal...which they can, and have...it was that they could not rule the DP illegal (which they can, and have).

Yes, they have the power to find that the DP itself was unconstitutional by saying, again, wait for it, that there is no system in place that meets the standards of requisite due process.

They didn't have DNA in the 18th Century. They didn't have forensics. They didn't understand a whole lot about due process the way we do now. They didn't have the tools or the experience. They were still working through that stuff. Now we do.

And yes they absolutely could say, there is no system that can guarantee no innocent people will ever be killed. Because it's true. They can absolutely say, there is no system that won't be burdened by racism or sexism (I'm guessing you think the founders gave that tons of thought eh?).

That's not saying the concept of the DP is unconstitutional. That's a strawman only you've built. They can say no DP system currently in place or possible can address the due process issues of the innocent being killed or racism/sexism/socioeconomics.

[FBaggins]

11. Kennedy vs. Kavanaugh

Kennedy voted to stay the execution in order to have this hearing/ruling. Kavanaugh was the deciding vote to let it go through.

[DeminPennswoods]

15. Am opposed to the death penalty,

but I do wonder why co2 isn't used in executions. It's odorless, painless and you just go to sleep forever. Maybe it isn't cruel enough for DP believers.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Undoubtedly you're right. There's no payoff for the ghouls. What would they have to look forward to?

It would be so hard for them to keep their spirits up without the prospect of police shootings, occasional lynchings, and executions. In their world-view, everyone who isn't wealthy enough to buy lawyers, and local politicians who will look out for them is probably a Democrat, anyway.

[EX500rider]

33. I suspect the Nazi's use of gas has ruined that particular method even though...

....co2 is nothing like ZylonB.

[manicdem]

37. CO2 would be painful

CO2 would be a painful way to die, basically sufforcation and choking. The body has a natural CO2 detector which will cause you to choke, gag, panic, etc.

Nitrogen or Helium is not detected by the body. You would breathe normally and pass out without knowing it.

[marble falls]

17. I never realized what dim-wit Gorsuch is. "Choking on blood" is cruel and unusual.

[projectiboga]

19. He ruled that a man fearful for his life abandoned his job

Gorsuch ruled that a man reasonably fearful of freezing to death should have kept with his truck for him to be eligible for unemployment. That is the Ghoul we got instead of Garland, as a direct result of that McConnell Treason.

[Judi Lynn]

20. The Supreme Court's Conservatives Just Legalized Torture

In an appalling death penalty opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch just overturned 60 years of precedent.
By MARK JOSEPH STERN

APRIL 01, 20191:14 PM

On Monday, five justices of the Supreme Court authorized Missouri to torture a man to death. In the process, they appear to have overruled decades of Eighth Amendment precedents in a quest to let states impose barbaric punishments, including excruciating executions, on prisoners. The court’s conservative majority has converted a once-fringe view into the law of the land, imperiling dozens of decisions protecting the rights of death row inmates, as well as juvenile offenders. Its ruling signals the end of an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence governed by “civilized standards”—and the beginning of a new, brutal era in American capital punishment.

Russell Bucklew is a death row inmate in Missouri who suffers from a rare medical condition called cavernous hemangioma. Due to this disorder, his body is covered with tumors filled with blood vessels. Tumors in Bucklew’s neck and throat, his lips and uvula, which make it difficult for him to breathe. They are highly sensitive and frequently squirt blood. A medical expert, Dr. Joel Zivot, has testified that if Missouri administers a lethal injection to Bucklew, he will die a slow, agonizing death. His tumors will rupture and fill his mouth with blood, and he will suffocate to death in unbearable pain, choking and convulsing on the gurney as he dies.

To forestall this fate, Bucklew sought to block his execution by lethal injection, arguing that it would violate the Eighth Amendment’s bar against “cruel and unusual punishments.” Under two Supreme Court precedents, Baze v. Rees and Glossip v. Gross, an inmate challenging his method of execution must provide an “available alternative” that will cause less pain.
Bucklew asked to be killed with nitrogen gas so that he can die from “hypoxia,” a lack of oxygen, because his death from hypoxia would be faster than his death from lethal injection.

In Monday’s Bucklew v. Precythe, the court rejected his claim by a 5–4 vote. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion for the court, however, does much more than condemn Bucklew to a harrowing demise. It also quietly overrules, or at least erodes, more than 60 years of precedents, including several written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Gorsuch embraced a vision of the Eighth Amendment supported by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia that has consistently been rejected as dangerously extreme by a majority of the court.

More:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/supreme-court-neil-gorsuch-eighth-amendment-death-penalty-torture.html

[catbyte]

23. So, is this guy unable to tolerate any IVs at all? Is that what the argument is? That even the

sedation will cause bleeding? Sorry, I haven't been following this.

[Kurt V.]

27. There's more to it than just this one guy.

https://thinkprogress.org/gorsuch-supreme-court-cruel-death-penalty-opinion-eighth-amendment-8ddde34133ac/

[Honeycombe8]

30. Part of the reasoning for the decision is that they think it's a delay tactic.

That's what I gathered. The evidence for that was that he is able to pick another method of execution that doesn't interfere with his medical condition. There are other methods that would serve that purpose and which have been tested in the courts as legal. The prisoner did not do that. He chose an alternate method that was NOT tested in the courts and legal. This means that when his next execution date comes up, he would be suing in court because gas, the method he chose, is not approved. Which would delay it. The prisoner has delayed it several times already.

So he had a chance to choose an alternate method that is approved/legal. He chose not to.

[Kurt V.]

32. you just ain't fucking getting it!!!! this decision is going to affect a lot more ppl than this guy.

[Honeycombe8]

34. YOU are the one not getting it.

I've read a lot of cases in my day. I'm not a lawyer, but was a litigation paralegal.

Whenever you try to apply a case, you compare the facts and evidence of that other case to yours, favorably. The other side points out the differences in the cases, and those differences are very important.

This man had alternate choices that are legal. He REFUSED to choose a legal alternate, instead choosing an alternate that he KNEW would have to go thru the court system to get approved. Evidence of delay tactic. In other words, he had a RIGHT to a choice of method. (This has been ruled on before, as I recall.)

This case will not have much impact on others, since this is a peculiar set of circumstances, and the prisoner chose not to use the solutions available to him. One of the solutions NOT available to him, and which he chose, is to choose a method that is not legal.

I understand the "the law does not promise no pain" statement. And that is true. Whenever you get an injection, there is pain from the injection. There is pain from gassing. There is momentary pain from being shot by a firing squad (although that's almost instanteous death). There are no guarantees, but the method is deemed humane, and efforts are made to make it so.

You just disapprove of the law, so will never approve or reach to understand a legal case on the subject.

Now, get out your grammar book and look up how to have discourse like an adult, without cussing at people because you disagree with them.

[Kurt V.]

35. i do apologize for cussing you. and still you aren't getting it.

[Kurt V.]

36. Ian Millhiser

Ian Millhiser
@imillhiser
I really cannot exaggerate how radical and how significant the opinion Gorsuch handed down today is. It completely rewrites the Court's understanding of a provision of the Bill of Rights -- and it portends similarly revolutionary opinions in the future.

[cstanleytech]

31. "What the Eighth Amendment does guarantee is a method of execution that not 'cruel and unusual.'"

You would think potentially choking to death on your own blood would fall into the whole cruel and unusual but then again maybe Gorsuch thinks its not and gets his rocks off on it?

[Polybius]

38. From the article:

In 1996, Bucklew, now 50, stalked his former girlfriend Stephanie Ray at another man’s trailer. He shot and killed the man, Michael Sanders, tried to shoot Ray’s fleeing child and then captured Ray. He handcuffed and raped her, then wounded a police officer in a subsequent gunfight.

Bucklew later escaped from jail and attacked Ray’s mother with a hammer before he was recaptured.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Wow, just wow. Speaking of all the talk about how capital punishment is revenge, what he did after he escaped was the worst kind of revenge. He has zero remorse.

[Apple Fritter]

40. Wondering what happen to the guy on death row with dementia...now that case was conflicting n/t