Kentucky cleared for executions

Kentucky’s lethal injection method is constitutional, the state Supreme Court said in a ruling Wednesday that could clear the way for executions to resume.

Kentucky death row inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling, 52, and Ralph Baze, 49, challenged the state’s method of execution in 2004, saying the drug formula causes pain and is therefore cruel and unusual punishment.

The state has not declared a moratorium on executions but had not scheduled any since the lawsuit was filed.

Affirming a lower-court ruling issued after a lengthy trial last year, the Supreme Court said the judge made no errors.

“It is not the role of this court to investigate the political, moral, ethical, religious or personal views of those on each side of this issue.... We are limited in deciding only whether the method defined by the Legislature and signed into law by the executive, survives constitutional review,” Justice Donald C. Wintersheimer wrote in the unanimous opinion, issued from Frankfort.