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Interesting new paper on Baze and lethal injection litigation

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader pointed me to this new paper appearing on SSRN titled "Bazed and Confused: Lethal Injection, the Eighth Amendment, and Plurality Opinions."  Here is the abstract: For over six months, from October 2007 to April 2008, there was a de facto moratorium on all executions while state and lower federal courts waited for the Supreme Court to assess the propriety of lethal injection protocols under the Eighth Amendment.  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court proved incapable of achieving even minimal consensus as to the interplay between the Eighth Amendment and lethal injection procedures.  Chief Justice Roberts's plurality opinion in Baze v. Rees, which purports to provide a framework for use by lower courts evaluating the constitutional propriety of local lethal injection protocols, garnered the votes of only three justices...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).