I originally wrote about this issue when it was first filed with the Supreme Court (November 12, 2007) - click on link above for text of blog.
The vote was 7-2 with Ruth Ginsburg and David Souter dissenting.
I will have to read the formal opinion to see the basis for the Court's decision but I remembered arguing in my initial comment that there ARE better methods of lethal injection than the 3-drug current method that appears to be hard to administer and may cause unintended "suffering".
The original case brought by two inmates from Kentucky was NOT to stop execution by lethal injection but to USE ANOTHER METHOD like the one-shot Barbiturate Overdose Method.
I am not sure the Supreme Court addressed that specific complaint and herein lies the problem; they don't want to judge what IS "cruel & unusual punishment" and so this issue will keep dragging on - a bullet in the back of the head causes death so fast that the inmate has no time to feel pain - so is it painless for the inmate but painful for us?
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