Washington – Supreme Court justices clashed Wednesday over how states execute killers, with one court member saying current lethal-injection drugs would not be used on cats and dogs and a second arguing that executions do not have to be pain-free.
The court had blocked Florida, at the last minute, from executing Clarence Hill in January, as Hill lay on a gurney with IV lines in his arms.
The justices took up his case with a lively and contentious discussion about the way states carry out capital punishment. The court’s ruling will determine whether inmates can file last- minute civil rights challenges claiming their deaths would be cruel and unusual punishment.
“Your procedure would be prohibited if applied to dogs and cats,” Justice John Paul Stevens told Florida’s assistant deputy attorney general, Carolyn Snurkowski.
On the other side, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Constitution does not require painless deaths. “Hanging was not a quick and easy way to go,” he said.
States gradually have stopped using hangings, firing squads, gas chambers and electric chairs. Now the federal government and every capital punishment state but one uses lethal injection because it is considered more humane. Nebraska still has the electric chair, but its use is being challenged in court.
Critics of lethal injection point to a 2005 study in the Lancet medical journal indicating that a painkiller administered at the start of an execution can wear off before a prisoner dies.
Hill’s lawyer, D. Todd Doss, said Hill accepts that he can be executed for slaying police officer Stephen Taylor in Pensacola 24 years ago. Hill just does not want to suffer, Doss said.
Florida argues that it is too late for Hill to contest the plans for his death. Snurkowski said the only way Hill could file a challenge to lethal injection is if Hill comes up with an alternative proposal. That argument angered several court members.
Justice David Souter said, “Why does he have an obligation … to tell the state how to execute people?”
“Doesn’t the state have a minimal obligation on its own” to investigate whether its executions cause gratuitous pain, asked Justice Anthony Kennedy.
A decision is expected in July.
