WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said the court's decision to hear a lethal injection case should not be interpreted as a moratorium on the procedure.
On Sept. 25, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Baze vs. Rees, a case brought by two death row inmates in Kentucky arguing that lethal injections amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
The question in the case is determining whether a particular combination of drugs in the lethal injection cause too much pain and suffering. It does not consider the constitutionality of the procedure.
Despite its intent, however, 16 states stayed the executions of several inmates in anticipation of the ruling next spring, Stateline.org reports.
Michael Siem, an attorney orchestrating the stay of execution of Jack Alderman, who was convicted of murdering his wife in Georgia, said that the states’ response to the Baze vs. Rees hearing set precedent for a nationwide moratorium on lethal injections.
In a dissenting opinion on an Arkansas case, however, Scalia wrote that the moratorium was “based on the mistaken premise that our grant of certiorari in Baze vs. Reese … calls for the stay of every execution in which an individual raises an Eighth Amendment challenge to the lethal injection protocol.”
