The Supreme Court has handed down the much anticipated ruling over Kentucky’s use of lethal injection. In a fractured decision, the Court upheld the ruling for the state. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the decision, though his actual decision only garnered three votes. In the fractured opinions below, the majority agreed only in the result. two justices dissented: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.
Roberts wrote that “[w]e … agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”
This was an expected ruling, as discussed in this column.
