Supreme Court upholds executions by lethal injection

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court cleared the way today for executions to resume across the nation, ruling that lethal injections, if properly carried out, are a “humane” means of ending a condemned individual’s life.

The court upheld Kentucky’s use of lethal injections by a surprisingly large 7-2 vote.

“The Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. And there is little evidence that states subject inmates to needless pain when they are put to death.

The ruling is a defeat for death penalty opponents. They had argued that lethal injections may work to disguise the pain of a dying person, and therefore, should be prohibited.

If the court had agreed, the decision may well have stopped capital punishment. Since October, executions have been put on hold while the justices reconsidered the constitutionality of lethal injections.

Thirty-six states and the federal government rely on the use of lethal injections to carry out executions. This method became standard in recent decades because it was seen as more humane than previous methods.

“The firing squad, hanging, the electric chair and the gas chamber have each in turn given way to more humane methods, culminating in today’s consensus on lethal injections,” Roberts said.

He added that “our approval of a particular method” does not preclude “legislatures from taking the steps they deem appropriate, in light of new developments, to ensure humane capital punishment.”

Critics of lethal injections had pointed to a British medical study that suggested that the commonly used three-drug cocktail may paralyze a dying man and then subject him to searing pain when a heart-stopping drug is administered.

Roberts said there was no evidence that Kentucky officials would fail to give a dying man enough of an anesthetic, sodium thiopental. He said the justices were unwilling to declare lethal injections “cruel and unusual punishment” simply because of the theoretical and unproven risk that in the future, some prison officials may make a mistake when administering the three drugs.

To stop such executions in the future, defense lawyers must show a “demonstrated risk of severe pain” to the dying person, he said.

The court’s opinion in Baze vs. Rees stops short of ordering executions to resume. But Roberts made clear the majority of justices saw no problem with the current state systems.

“A state with a lethal injection protocol substantially similar to the protocol we upheld today would not create a risk that meets this [demonstrated risk] standard,” he said.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer concurred with the judgment. They agree there was no evidence that Kentucky’s procedures were flawed.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter dissented. They said Kentucky’s method creates “a readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain” because prison officials cannot be sure the condemned inmate is unconscious when the heart-stopping drug is administered. They said executions should remain on hold until this problem is remedied.

david.savage@latimes.com