Judgment Day

You knew it was coming. The Court’s ruling in Baze, holding a lethal drug procedure may not pose “a substantial risk of serious harm”, left the door open for inmates to show not all execution procedures are constitutional. SCOTUSblog has this about Virginia death-row inmate Christopher Scott Emmett telling the Supreme Court on Monday that the state follows a “unique and uniquely dangerous” method of execution by lethal injection. Here are highlights:

In opposing a request by the state for the Court to lift an order blocking Emmett’s execution, the inmate’s lawyers called the Virginia protocol “far more dangerous” than the Kentucky version the Supreme Court upheld in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) on April 16. The state argued that the Supreme Court stay should be lifted, so that Virginia could go ahead and set an execution date for Emmett for the murder of a co-worker in Danville, Va., in 2001. Emmett should have to ask lower courts for any further stay, the state contended.

On the merits of Virginia’s lethal injection protocol, Emmett’s counsel cited what they said were two facets that indicate that procedure may fail the constitutional standard the Supreme Court spelled out in Baze :

First, the brief contended, when an inmate in Virginia takes longer than expected to die, prison officials inject more of the second and third drugs in the three-drug sequence (the drugs that paralyze the individual and then cause the heart to stop), but do not inject more of the first drug (the one that causes unconsciousness).

Second, the brief said, the Virginia procedure involves injection of the second and third drugs “within a minute” after the first drug is administered — an insufficient time to assure that the inmate is completely unconscious.

SCOTUSblog has two Baze updates: "First post-Baze maneuvers" and "Baze Commentary: Justice Stevens’ Concurrence”. Highlights for the first update, second is provided in full:

"First post-Baze maneuvers":

The state of Florida moved quickly on Thursday to get Supreme Court permission to carry out the execution of a death-row inmate, and a prisoner in Mississippi asked the Court to rule itself or tell a lower court to rule on his challenge to that state’s execution procedure. These were the first filings in the Court in the wake of Wednesday’s ruling upholding the basic elements of execution by use of lethal drug injections.

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For most, the moratorium is over.The Supreme Court’s decision in Baze yesterday has generated hundreds of news stories. Here are two interesting pieces:

“Lethal injections ruled not cruel punishment”; Discussing when executions in California could resume, the San Francisco Chronicle provides “obstacles remain in California, where a federal judge's ruling has forced the state to overhaul its lethal injection procedures and build a new execution chamber and where another judge has told the state to seek public input before changing its rules.”

“Moratorium on Lethal Injection Is Over, but Hardly the Challenges”; Adam Liptak of the New York Times writes this: “ the fractured decision may actually slow executions elsewhere … as lawyers for death row inmates undertake fresh challenges based on its newly announced legal standards.”

Straight from SCOTUSblog:

Today’s opinion by Justice Breyer in Begay v. United States (06-11543) is now available here. Justice Scalia filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Souter and Thomas joined.

[In Begay,] the court found that drunk driving is not a “violent felony,” at least for purposes of an enhanced prison sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The ruling, written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, came on a 6-3 vote in Begay v. U.S. (06-11543).

Today’s unanimous opinion by Justice Ginsburg in Burgess v. United States (06-11429) is now available here.

In a second decision on an enhanced sentencing law, the Court ruled that a drug crime that is punishable by more than one year in prison is a “felony drug offense” even if state law classifies it as a misdemeanor. The unanimous ruling came in the case of Burgess v. U.S. (06-11429).

Today’s opinion in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) is now available here. The Chief Justice announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which Justices Kennedy and Alito joined. Justice Alito also filed a concurring opinion. Justice Stevens and Breyer each filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Scalia and Thomas each filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which the other joined. Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Souter joined.

Baze is the superstar here, but I'm interested in the other two as well. I’ll need some time to review, but here's the SCOTUSblog recap (in its entirety) on Baze:

Lethal injection allowed

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