| You already knew the appeal in the SCOTUS against lethal injection as a means of executing prisoners was toast based on Justice Scalia's coy refusal to even consider the constitutional basis of the case. Sure enough, this past Wedensday the highest court ruled that lethal injection - a method banned as too inhumane in many states for the euthanasia of animals - was a humane method of carrying out an execution.
Chief Justice Roberts opined that "some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution - no matter how humane," and said that risk was necessary to carry out the death penalty, which is unquestionably legal.
He also set a high bar for future challenges to carrying out the death penalty. To halt an execution, defense lawyers must show that there is a "substantial risk" that the condemned prisoner will suffer "severe pain," the chief justice said. And they have yet to provide such evidence, he added.
Justices Scalia and Thomas rejected even that criteria, and said they would "reject all challenges to an execution method unless it was 'deliberately designed to inflict pain.'" (The president, of course, agrees, unless the prisoner is to be kept alive.)
According to Montana Attorney General, Mike McGrath, the SCOTUS decision does not affect a lawsuit against our state's lethal injection policy, because Montana's constitution is stricter on the issue:
The ACLU says that the Montana Constitution sets a higher standard for human dignity than the U.S. Constitution, and that lethal injection by Montana standards is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
Here in the state, most consider the death penalty politically inviolate. However, there's a movement afoot in Montana to ban it, with a variety of political supporters. A death penalty ban passed the Montana state Senate in the last session, thanks to support from conservative Christian Republican legislators. (Naturally Scott Sales quashed the bill in the House over worries of how it would hurt him politically.)
Personally ambivalent about the concept of executions, I am appalled at the unequal application of the punishment, the number of wrongly convicted prisoners on death row, and the cost and legal efforts it requires to implement. Apparently Montanans from across the political spectrum agree with me. Perhaps, with a new House majority leader, we could actually have a debate on the issue the next go-round, eh? |
