Supreme Court Upholds Use of Drug Injections for Executions : Rules Out FDA Tests for Speed, Amount of Pain

The Supreme Court today allowed continued use of lethal injections to execute Death Row inmates, ruling unanimously that federal drug regulators are not required to ensure that the injections do not produce a slow and painful death.

The decision shields from legal attack the Food and Drug Administration’s decision not to test the drugs used in lethal injections.

The court overturned a federal appeals court ruling that ordered the FDA to ban lethal injections unless it determines that they kill quickly and painlessly.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here ruled in 1983 that states must suspend use of the injections.

Blocked by Burger

But Chief Justice Warren E. Burger blocked that ruling, pending Supreme Court review of the appeals court decision, and permitted states to continue to use the injections.

Thirteen states permit or require execution by lethal injections. They are Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.

Lethal injections have been used to carry out eight executions since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

As used on Death Row, the drugs are intended to quickly render the prisoner unconscious, stop the heartbeat and paralyze breathing.

Immune From Review

Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the court, said decisions by the FDA not to exercise its enforcement powers generally are not subject to review by the courts. “An agency’s decision not to take enforcement action should be presumed immune from judicial review,” he said.

Generally, he added, the only exception would be if Congress provided guidelines requiring the agency to exercise its powers.

Today’s case stemmed from a suit by death-row inmates in Texas and Oklahoma who said the FDA had the responsibility to make sure the drugs in lethal injections do not “produce excruciatingly slow and painful death.”

The Reagan Administration, which prevailed today, said there is no reason to believe the agency has such a legal obligation.

Lethal injections usually involve drugs--barbiturates and derivatives of curare--that have medically approved uses. The FDA has determined they are “safe and effective” for medical use.

Sweeping Implications

Justice William J. Brennan, who joined in the court’s decision in excusing the FDA from reviewing lethal injections, objected that Rehnquist’s opinion was too sweeping. In a separate concurring opinion, Brennan said Rehnquist’s opinion, “if taken literally, would take the courts out of the role of reviewing agency inaction in far too many cases.”

In other cases, the court:

--Relaxed its rules about how long police officers may detain someone suspected of a crime when they do not have enough reason to make an arrest.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices reinstated the drug-related convictions of two men detained by federal agents in South Carolina for 20 minutes while their suspicious behavior was being investigated.

The court has never said precisely how long such investigative detentions may last, and it did not do so today.

--Ruled that criminal suspects generally may not be forced to undergo surgery for the removal of bullets even when such surgery is likely to yield evidence of a crime.