Baze
v. Rees
April 16, 2008
Vote: 7-2
Here the Court reviews
Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment
of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice
Kennedy and Justice Alito
join.
Like 35 other States
and the Federal Government,
Petitioners in
this case--each convicted of double homicide--acknowledge that the lethal
injection procedure, if applied as intended, will result in a humane death.
They nevertheless contend that the lethal injection protocol is
unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual
punishments," because of the risk that the protocol's terms might not be
properly followed, resulting in significant pain. They propose an alternative protocol, one that they concede has not been adopted by any
State and has never been tried.
The trial court
held extensive hearings and entered detailed Findings of Fact and Conclusions
of Law. It recognized that "[t]here are no methods of legal execution that
are satisfactory to those who oppose the death penalty on moral, religious, or
societal grounds," but concluded that Kentucky's procedure "complies
with the constitutional requirements against cruel and unusual
punishment." … The State Supreme Court affirmed. We too agree that
petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from
maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the
failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and
unusual punishment. The judgment below is affirmed.
I
A
By the middle of the 19th century, "hanging was the 'nearly
universal form of execution' in the
Electrocution
remained the predominant mode of execution for nearly a century, although
several methods, including hanging, firing squad, and lethal gas were in use at
one time. … Following the 9-year hiatus
in executions that ended with our decision in Gregg v.
Of these 36
States, at least 30 (including
B
Shortly after the
adoption of lethal injection, officials working for the Kentucky Department of
Corrections set about developing a written protocol to comply with the
requirements of [the new law].
A physician is
present to assist in any effort to revive the prisoner in the event of a
last-minute stay of execution. … By statute, however, the physician is prohibited from
participating in the "conduct of an execution," except to certify the
cause of death. … An electrocardiogram (EKG) verifies the death of the
prisoner. … Only one
C
Petitioners Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling were each convicted
of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme
Court upheld their convictions and sentences on direct appeal. …
After exhausting
their state and federal collateral remedies, Baze and Bowling sued three state
officials in the Franklin Circuit Court for the
We granted
certiorari to determine whether
II
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, applicable to the States
through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, …
provides that "[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." We begin with the
principle … that capital punishment is constitutional. … It necessarily follows
that there must be a means of carrying it out. Some risk of pain is inherent in
any method of execution--no matter how humane--if only from the prospect of
error in following the required procedure. It is clear, then, that the
Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out
executions.
Petitioners do
not claim that it does. Rather, they contend that the Eighth Amendment
prohibits procedures that create an "unnecessary risk" of pain. … Specifically,
they argue that courts must evaluate "(a) the severity of pain risked, (b)
the likelihood of that pain occurring, and (c) the extent to which alternative
means are feasible, either by modifying existing execution procedures or adopting
alternative procedures." … Petitioners envision that the quantum of risk necessary
to make out an Eighth Amendment claim will vary according to the severity of
the pain and the availability of alternatives, … but that the risk must be
"significant" to trigger Eighth Amendment scrutiny. …
Kentucky responds
that this "unnecessary risk" standard is tantamount to a requirement
that States adopt the " 'least risk' " alternative in
carrying out an execution, a standard the Commonwealth contends will cast
recurring constitutional doubt on any procedure adopted by the States. … Instead,
A
This Court has never invalidated a State's chosen procedure for
carrying out a sentence of death as the infliction of cruel and unusual
punishment. …
… [I]n In re
Kemmler … (1890) … we rejected an opportunity to incorporate the Eighth
Amendment against the States in a challenge to the first execution by
electrocution, to be carried out by the State of
B
Petitioners do not claim that lethal injection or the proper
administration of the particular protocol adopted by
Instead,
petitioners claim that there is a significant risk that the procedures will not be
properly followed--in particular, that the sodium thiopental will not be
properly administered to achieve its intended effect--resulting in severe pain
when the other chemicals are administered. Our cases recognize that subjecting
individuals to a risk of future harm--not simply actually inflicting pain--can
qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. To establish that such exposure
violates the Eighth Amendment, however, the conditions presenting the risk must
be "sure or
very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,"
and give rise to "sufficiently imminent dangers." … We have
explained that to prevail on such a claim there must be a "substantial
risk of serious harm," an "objectively intolerable risk of harm"
that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were "subjectively
blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment." …
Simply because an
execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable
consequence of death, does not establish the sort of "objectively
intolerable risk of harm" that qualifies as cruel and unusual. In
…[A]n isolated mishap alone does not give rise to an Eighth
Amendment violation, precisely because such an event, while regrettable, does
not suggest cruelty, or that the procedure at issue gives rise to a
"substantial risk of serious harm."…
C
Much of petitioners' case rests on the contention that they have
identified a significant risk of harm that can be eliminated by adopting
alternative procedures, such as a one-drug protocol that dispenses with the use
of pancuronium and potassium chloride, and additional monitoring by trained
personnel to ensure that the first dose of sodium thiopental has been
adequately delivered. Given what our cases have said about the nature of the
risk of harm that is actionable under the Eighth Amendment, a condemned
prisoner cannot successfully challenge a State's method of execution merely by
showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative.
Permitting an
Eighth Amendment violation to be established on such a showing would threaten
to transform courts into boards of inquiry charged with determining "best
practices" for executions, with each ruling supplanted by another round of
litigation touting a new and improved methodology. Such an approach finds no
support in our cases, would embroil the courts in ongoing scientific
controversies beyond their expertise, and would substantially intrude on the
role of state legislatures in implementing their execution procedures--a role
that by all accounts the States have fulfilled with an earnest desire to
provide for a progressively more humane manner of death. … Accordingly, we
reject petitioners' proposed "unnecessary risk" standard, as well as
the dissent's "untoward" risk variation. …
Instead, the
proffered alternatives must effectively address a "substantial risk of
serious harm." … To qualify, the alternative procedure must be feasible,
readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduce a substantial risk of
severe pain. If a State refuses to adopt such an alternative in the face of
these documented advantages, without a legitimate penological justification for
adhering to its current method of execution, then a State's refusal to change
its method can be viewed as "cruel and unusual" under the Eighth
Amendment.
III
In applying these standards to the facts of this case, we note at
the outset that it is difficult to regard a practice as "objectively
intolerable" when it is in fact widely tolerated. Thirty-six States that
sanction capital punishment have adopted lethal injection as the preferred
method of execution. The Federal Government uses lethal injection as well. … This
broad consensus goes not just to the method of execution, but also to the
specific three-drug combination used by
In order to meet
their "heavy burden" of showing that
A
Petitioners contend that there is a risk of improper
administration of thiopental because the doses are difficult to mix into solution
form and load into syringes; because the protocol fails to establish a rate of
injection, which could lead to a failure of the IV; because it is possible that
the IV catheters will infiltrate into surrounding tissue, causing an inadequate
dose to be delivered to the vein; because of inadequate facilities and
training; and because Kentucky has no reliable means of monitoring the
anesthetic depth of the prisoner after the sodium thiopental has been
administered. …
As for the risk
that the sodium thiopental would be improperly prepared, petitioners contend
that Kentucky employs untrained personnel who are unqualified to calculate and
mix an adequate dose, especially in light of the omission of volume and
concentration amounts from the written protocol. … The state trial court,
however, specifically found that "[i]f the manufacturers' instructions for
reconstitution of Sodium Thiopental are followed, . . .
there would be minimal risk of improper mixing, despite converse testimony that
a layperson would have difficulty performing this task." … We cannot say
that this finding is clearly erroneous, … particularly
when that finding is substantiated by expert testimony describing the task of
reconstituting powder sodium thiopental into solution form as "[n]ot difficult
at all. ... You take a liquid, you inject it into a vial with the powder, then
you shake it up until the powder dissolves and, you're done. The instructions
are on the package insert." …
Likewise, the
asserted problems related to the IV lines do not establish a sufficiently
substantial risk of harm to meet the requirements of the Eighth Amendment.
The IV team has
one hour to establish both the primary and backup IVs, a length of time the
trial court found to be "not excessive but rather necessary," … contrary to
petitioners' claim that using an IV inserted after any "more than ten or
fifteen minutes of unsuccessful attempts is dangerous because the IV is almost
certain to be unreliable." … And, in any event, merely because the
protocol gives the IV team one hour to establish intravenous access does not
mean that team members are required to spend the entire hour in a futile
attempt to do so. The qualifications of the IV team also substantially reduce
the risk of IV infiltration.
In addition, the
presence of the warden and deputy warden in the execution chamber with the
prisoner allows them to watch for signs of IV problems, including infiltration.
Three of the Commonwealth's medical experts testified that identifying signs of
infiltration would be "very obvious," even to the average person,
because of the swelling that would result. …
B
Nor does
First,
petitioners contend that
In any event, the
Commonwealth's continued use of the three-drug protocol cannot be viewed as
posing an "objectively intolerable risk" when no other State has
adopted the one-drug method and petitioners proffered no study showing that it
is an equally effective manner of imposing a death sentence. … Indeed, the
State of
Petitioners also
contend that
Petitioners'
barbiturate-only protocol, they contend, is not untested; it is used routinely
by veterinarians in putting animals to sleep. Moreover, 23
States, including
Petitioners also
fault the
At the outset, it
is important to reemphasize that a proper dose of thiopental obviates the
concern that a prisoner will not be sufficiently sedated. All the experts who
testified at trial agreed on this point. The risks of failing to adopt
additional monitoring procedures are thus even more "remote" and
attenuated than the risks posed by the alleged inadequacies of Kentucky's
procedures designed to ensure the delivery of thiopental. …
But more than
this,
The dissent
believes that rough-and-ready tests for checking consciousness--calling the
inmate's name, brushing his eyelashes, or presenting him with strong, noxious
odors--could materially decrease the risk of administering the second and third
drugs before the sodium thiopental has taken effect. … Again, the risk at issue
is already attenuated, given the steps
The dissent would
continue the stay of these executions (and presumably the many others held in
abeyance pending decision in this case) and send the case back to the lower
courts to determine whether such added measures redress an "untoward"
risk of pain. … But
an inmate cannot succeed on an Eighth Amendment claim simply by showing one
more step the State could take as a failsafe for other, independently adequate
measures. This approach would serve no meaningful purpose and would frustrate
the State's legitimate interest in carrying out a sentence of death in a timely
manner. …
Justice Stevens
suggests that our opinion leaves the disposition of other cases uncertain, … but the standard we set forth here resolves
more challenges than he acknowledges. A stay of execution may not be granted on
grounds such as those asserted here unless the condemned prisoner establishes
that the State's lethal injection protocol creates a demonstrated risk of
severe pain. He must show that the risk is substantial when compared to the
known and available alternatives. A State with a lethal injection protocol
substantially similar to the protocol we uphold today would not create a risk
that meets this standard.
* * *
Reasonable people of good faith disagree on the morality and
efficacy of capital punishment, and for many who
oppose it, no method of execution would ever be acceptable. But as Justice
Frankfurter stressed in Resweber, "[o]ne must be on guard against
finding in personal disapproval a reflection of more or less prevailing condemnation."
… This Court has ruled that capital punishment is not prohibited under our
Constitution, and that the States may enact laws specifying that sanction. … State efforts to implement capital punishment
must certainly comply with the Eighth Amendment, but what that Amendment
prohibits is wanton exposure to "objectively intolerable risk," … not simply
the possibility of pain.
Throughout our
history, whenever a method of execution has been challenged in this Court as
cruel and unusual, the Court has rejected the challenge. Our society has
nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of carrying out capital
punishment. The firing squad, hanging, the electric chair, and the gas chamber
have each in turn given way to more humane methods, culminating in today's
consensus on lethal injection. … The broad framework of the Eighth Amendment has
accommodated this progress toward more humane methods of execution, and our
approval of a particular method in the past has not precluded legislatures from
taking the steps they deem appropriate, in light of new developments, to ensure
humane capital punishment. There is no reason to suppose that today's decision
will be any different.
The judgment
below concluding that
Justice Alito, concurring. …
Justice Stevens, concurring in the judgment.
When we granted certiorari in this case, I assumed that our
decision would bring the debate about lethal injection as a method of execution
to a close. It now seems clear that it will not. The question whether a similar
three-drug protocol may be used in other States remains open, and may well be
answered differently in a future case on the basis of a more complete record.
Instead of ending the controversy, I am now convinced that this case will
generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug
protocol, and specifically about the justification for the use of the paralytic
agent, pancuronium bromide, but also about the justification for the death
penalty itself. …
The thoughtful
opinions written by The Chief Justice and by Justice Ginsburg have persuaded me that
current decisions by state legislatures, by the Congress of the United States,
and by this Court to retain the death penalty as a part of our law are the
product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process
that weighs the costs and risks of administering that penalty against its
identifiable benefits, and rest in part on a faulty assumption about the
retributive force of the death penalty.
In Gregg
v.
While incapacitation
may have been a legitimate rationale in 1976, the recent rise in statutes
providing for life imprisonment without the possibility of parole demonstrates
that incapacitation is neither a necessary nor a sufficient justification for
the death penalty. Moreover, a recent poll indicates that support for the death
penalty drops significantly when life without the possibility of parole is
presented as an alternative option. And the available sociological evidence
suggests that juries are less likely to impose the death penalty when life
without parole is available as a sentence.
The legitimacy of
deterrence as an acceptable justification for the death penalty is also
questionable, at best. Despite 30 years of empirical research in the area,
there remains no reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact
deters potential offenders. In the absence of such evidence, deterrence cannot
serve as a sufficient penological justification for this uniquely severe and
irrevocable punishment.
We are left,
then, with retribution as the primary rationale for imposing the death penalty.
And indeed, it is the retribution rationale that animates much of the remaining
enthusiasm for the death penalty. As Lord Justice Denning argued in 1950,
"some crimes are so outrageous that society insists on adequate
punishment, because the wrong-doer deserves it, irrespective of whether it is a
deterrent or not." … Our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has narrowed the
class of offenders eligible for the death penalty to include only those who
have committed outrageous crimes defined by specific aggravating factors. It is
the cruel treatment of victims that provides the most persuasive arguments for
prosecutors seeking the death penalty. A natural response to such heinous crimes
is a thirst for vengeance.
At the same time,
however, as the thoughtful opinions by The Chief Justice and Justice Ginsburg
make pellucidly clear, our society has moved away from
public and painful retribution towards ever more humane forms of punishment.
State-sanctioned killing is therefore becoming more and more anachronistic. In
an attempt to bring executions in line with our evolving standards of decency,
we have adopted increasingly less painful methods of execution, and then
declared previous methods barbaric and archaic. But by requiring that an
execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from
enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his
victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very
premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based. …
… The time for a
dispassionate, impartial comparison of the enormous costs that death penalty
litigation imposes on society with the benefits that it produces has surely
arrived. …
"[A] penalty may be cruel and unusual because it is excessive
and serves no valid legislative purpose." … Our cases holding that certain
sanctions are "excessive," and therefore prohibited by the Eighth
Amendment, have relied heavily on "objective criteria," such as
legislative enactments. … In our recent decision in Atkins v. Virginia … (2002),
holding that death is an excessive sanction for a mentally retarded defendant,
we also relied heavily on opinions written by Justice White holding that the
death penalty is an excessive punishment for the crime of raping a 16-year-old
woman, Coker v. Georgia (1977), and for a murderer who did
not intend to kill, Enmund v. Florida … (1982). In
those opinions we acknowledged that "objective evidence, though of great
importance, did not 'wholly determine' the controversy, 'for the Constitution
contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the
question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth
Amendment.' " …
Justice White was
exercising his own judgment in 1972 when he provided the decisive vote in Furman, the
case that led to a nationwide reexamination of the death penalty. His
conclusion that death amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment in the
constitutional sense" as well as the "dictionary sense," rested
on both an uncontroversial legal premise and on a factual premise that he
admittedly could not "prove" on the basis of objective criteria. … As
a matter of law, he correctly stated that the "needless extinction of life
with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes
... would be patently excessive" and violative of the Eighth Amendment. … As a matter
of fact, he stated, "like my Brethren, I must arrive at judgment; and I
can do no more than state a conclusion based on 10 years of almost daily
exposure to the facts and circumstances of hundreds and hundreds of federal and
state criminal cases involving crimes for which death is the authorized
penalty." …
I agree with Justice White that there are occasions when a Member of this Court
has a duty to make judgments on the basis of data that falls short of absolute
proof.
Our decisions in
1976 upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty relied heavily on our
belief that adequate procedures were in place that would avoid the danger of
discriminatory application identified by Justice Douglas' opinion in Furman, … of arbitrary application identified by Justice
Stewart, i…
and of excessiveness identified by Justices Brennan and Marshall. In
subsequent years a number of our decisions relied on the premise that
"death is different" from every other form of punishment to justify
rules minimizing the risk of error in capital cases. … Ironically, however,
more recent cases have endorsed procedures that provide less
protections to capital defendants than to ordinary offenders.
Of special
concern to me are rules that deprive the defendant of a trial by jurors
representing a fair cross section of the community.
Litigation involving both challenges for cause and peremptory challenges has
persuaded me that the process of obtaining a "death qualified jury"
is really a procedure that has the purpose and effect of obtaining a jury that
is biased in favor of conviction. The prosecutorial concern that death verdicts
would rarely be returned by 12 randomly selected jurors should be viewed as
objective evidence supporting the conclusion that the penalty is excessive.
Another serious
concern is that the risk of error in capital cases may be greater than in other
cases because the facts are often so disturbing that the interest in making
sure the crime does not go unpunished may overcome residual doubt concerning
the identity of the offender. Our former emphasis on the importance of ensuring
that decisions in death cases be adequately supported by reason rather than
emotion … has been undercut by more recent decisions placing a thumb on the
prosecutor's side of the scales. Thus, in
A third
significant concern is the risk of discriminatory application of the death
penalty. While that risk has been dramatically reduced, the Court has allowed
it to continue to play an unacceptable role in capital cases. Thus, in McCleskey
v. Kemp … (1987), the Court upheld a death sentence despite the
"strong probability that [the defendant's] sentencing jury ... was
influenced by the fact that [he was] black and his victim was
white." …
Finally, given
the real risk of error in this class of cases, the irrevocable nature of the
consequences is of decisive importance to me. Whether or not any innocent
defendants have actually been executed, abundant evidence accumulated in recent
years has resulted in the exoneration of an unacceptable number of defendants
found guilty of capital offenses. … The risk of executing innocent defendants
can be entirely eliminated by treating any penalty more severe than life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole as constitutionally excessive.
In sum, just as
Justice White ultimately based his conclusion in Furman on his extensive exposure
to countless cases for which death is the authorized penalty, I have relied on
my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death
penalty represents "the pointless and needless extinction of life with
only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A
penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and
cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment." …
The conclusion that I have reached with regard to the
constitutionality of the death penalty itself makes my decision in this case
particularly difficult. It does not, however, justify a refusal to respect
precedents that remain a part of our law. This Court has held that the death
penalty is constitutional, and has established a framework for evaluating the
constitutionality of particular methods of execution. Under those precedents,
whether as interpreted by The Chief Justice or Justice Ginsburg, I am persuaded that
the evidence adduced by petitioners fails to prove that
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice
Thomas joins, concurring in the judgment.
I join the opinion of Justice Thomas
concurring in the judgment. I write separately to provide what I think is needed
response to Justice
Stevens'
separate opinion.
I
Justice Stevens
concludes as follows: "[T]he imposition of the
death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with
only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A
penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and
cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment." …
This conclusion
is insupportable as an interpretation of the Constitution, which generally
leaves it to democratically elected legislatures rather than courts to decide
what makes significant contribution to social or public purposes. Besides that
more general proposition, the very text of the document recognizes that the
death penalty is a permissible legislative choice. The Fifth Amendment
expressly requires a presentment or indictment of a grand jury to hold a person
to answer for "a capital, or otherwise infamous crime," and prohibits
deprivation of "life" without due process of law. … The same Congress
that proposed the Eighth Amendment also enacted the Act of April 30, 1790,
which made several offenses punishable by death. … Writing in 1976, Professor
Hugo Bedau--no friend of the death penalty himself--observed that "[u]ntil
fifteen years ago, save for a few mavericks, no one gave any credence to the
possibility of ending the death penalty by judicial interpretation of
constitutional law." … There is simply no legal authority for the
proposition that the imposition of death as a criminal penalty is
unconstitutional other than the opinions in Furman v.
II
What prompts Justice Stevens to repudiate his prior view and to adopt the
astounding position that a criminal sanction expressly mentioned in the
Constitution violates the Constitution? His analysis begins with what he believes
to be the "uncontroversial legal premise" that the
" 'extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any
discernible social or public purposes ... would be patently excessive' and
violative of the Eighth Amendment." … Even if that were uncontroversial in
the abstract (and it is certainly not what occurs to me as the meaning of
"cruel and unusual punishments"), it is assuredly controversial
(indeed, flat-out wrong) as applied to a mode of punishment that is explicitly
sanctioned by the Constitution. As to that, the people have determined whether
there is adequate contribution to social or public purposes, and it is no
business of unelected judges to set that judgment aside. But even if we grant Justice Stevens his
"uncontroversial premise," his application of that premise to the
current practice of capital punishment does not meet the "heavy burden
[that] rests on those who would attack the judgment of the representatives of
the people." …
That is to say, Justice
Stevens'
policy analysis of the constitutionality of capital punishment fails on its own
terms.
According to Justice Stevens, the
death penalty promotes none of the purposes of criminal punishment because it
neither prevents more crimes than alternative measures nor serves a retributive
purpose. … He
argues that "the recent rise in statutes providing for life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole" means that States have a ready
alternative to the death penalty. Ibid. Moreover,
"[d]espite 30 years of empirical research in the area, there remains no
reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact deters potential
offenders." …
Taking the points together, Justice Stevens concludes that the
availability of alternatives, and what he describes as the unavailability of
"reliable statistical evidence," renders capital punishment
unconstitutional. In his view, the benefits of capital punishment--as compared
to other forms of punishment such as life imprisonment--are outweighed by the
costs.
These conclusions
are not supported by the available data. Justice Stevens' analysis barely
acknowledges the "significant body of recent evidence that capital
punishment may well have a deterrent effect, possibly a quite powerful
one." … According to a "leading national study," "each
execution prevents some eighteen murders, on average." … "If the
current evidence is even roughly correct ... then a refusal to impose capital
punishment will effectively condemn numerous innocent people to death." …
Of course, it may
well be that the empirical studies establishing that the death penalty has a
powerful deterrent effect are incorrect, and some scholars have disputed its
deterrent value. … But that is not the point. It is simply not our place to
choose one set of responsible empirical studies over another in interpreting
the Constitution. Nor is it our place to demand that state legislatures support
their criminal sanctions with foolproof empirical studies, rather than
commonsense predictions about human behavior. "The value of capital punishment
as a deterrent of crime is a complex factual issue the resolution of which
properly rests with the legislatures, which can evaluate the results of
statistical studies in terms of their own local conditions and with a
flexibility of approach that is not available to the courts." … Were Justice Stevens'
current view the constitutional test, even his own preferred criminal
sanction--life imprisonment without the possibility of parole--may fail
constitutional scrutiny, because it is entirely unclear that enough empirical
evidence supports that sanction as compared to alternatives such as life with
the possibility of parole.
But even if Justice Stevens'
assertion about the deterrent value of the death penalty were correct, the
death penalty would yet be constitutional (as he concedes) if it served the
appropriate purpose of retribution. I would think it difficult indeed to prove
that a criminal sanction fails to serve a retributive purpose--a judgment that
strikes me as inherently subjective and insusceptible of judicial review. Justice Stevens,
however, concludes that, because the Eighth Amendment "protect[s] the
inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering
inflicted on his victim," capital punishment serves no retributive purpose
at all. … The
infliction of any pain, according to Justice Stevens, violates the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, but so too does
the imposition of capital punishment without pain because a criminal penalty
lacks a retributive purpose unless it inflicts pain commensurate with the pain
that the criminal has caused. In other words, if a punishment is not
retributive enough, it is not retributive at all. To state this proposition is
to refute it, as Justice
Stevens once understood. …
Justice Stevens' final
refuge in his cost-benefit analysis is a familiar one: There is a risk that an
innocent person might be convicted and sentenced to death--though not a risk
that Justice
Stevens
can quantify, because he lacks a single example of a person executed for a
crime he did not commit in the current American system. … His analysis of this
risk is thus a series of sweeping condemnations that, if taken seriously, would
prevent any punishment under any criminal justice system. According to him,
"[t]he prosecutorial concern that death verdicts would rarely be returned
by 12 randomly selected jurors should be viewed as objective evidence
supporting the conclusion that the penalty is excessive." … But
prosecutors undoubtedly have a similar concern that any unanimous conviction would
rarely be returned by 12 randomly selected jurors. That is why they, like
defense counsel, are permitted to use the challenges for cause and peremptory
challenges that Justice
Stevens
finds so troubling, in order to arrive at a jury that both sides believe will
be more likely to do justice in a particular case. Justice Stevens'
concern that prosecutors will be inclined to challenge jurors who will not find
a person guilty supports not his conclusion, but the separate (and equally
erroneous) conclusion that peremptory challenges and challenges for cause are
unconstitutional. According to Justice Stevens, "the risk of error in capital cases may be
greater than in other cases because the facts are often so disturbing that the
interest in making sure the crime does not go unpunished may overcome residual
doubt concerning the identity of the offender." … That rationale, however,
supports not Justice
Stevens'
conclusion that the death penalty is unconstitutional, but the more sweeping
proposition that any conviction in a case in which facts are disturbing is
suspect--including, of course, convictions resulting in life without parole in
those States that do not have capital punishment. The same is true of Justice Stevens' claim
that there is a risk of "discriminatory application of the death
penalty." …
The same could be said of any criminal penalty, including life without parole;
there is no proof that in this regard the death penalty is distinctive.
But of all Justice Stevens' criticisms
of the death penalty, the hardest to take is his bemoaning of "the
enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on society,"
including the "burden on the courts and the lack of finality for victim's
families." …
Those costs, those burdens, and that lack of finality are in large
measure the creation of Justice Stevens and other Justices opposed to the death
penalty, who have "encumber[ed] [it] ... with unwarranted restrictions
neither contained in the text of the Constitution nor reflected in two
centuries of practice under it"--the product of their policy views
"not shared by the vast majority of the American people." …
III
But actually none of this really matters. As Justice Stevens explains,
" 'objective evidence, though of great importance, [does] not wholly
determine the controversy, for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be
brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under
the Eighth Amendment.' " ...
Purer expression
cannot be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat. In the face of Justice Stevens'
experience, the experience of all others is, it appears, of little consequence.
The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress--who retain the death
penalty as a form of punishment--is dismissed as "the product of habit and
inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process." … The
experience of social scientists whose studies indicate that the death penalty
deters crime is relegated to a footnote. … The experience of fellow citizens who
support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled
condemnation, as stemming from a "thirst for vengeance." … It is Justice Stevens'
experience that reigns over all.
* * *
I take no position on the desirability of the death penalty,
except to say that its value is eminently debatable and the subject of deeply,
indeed passionately, held views--which means, to me, that it is preeminently
not a matter to be resolved here. And especially not when it
is explicitly permitted by the Constitution.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia
joins, concurring in the judgment.
Although I agree that
petitioners have failed to establish that
Judged under the
proper standard, this is an easy case. It is undisputed that
Justice Breyer, concurring in the judgment.
Assuming the lawfulness
of the death penalty itself, petitioners argue that
… I cannot find,
either in the record or in the readily available literature that I have seen,
sufficient grounds to believe that
For these
reasons, I concur in the judgment.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Souter joins, dissenting.
It is undisputed that
the second and third drugs used in
The
constitutionality of
I
The Court has considered the constitutionality of a specific
method of execution on only three prior occasions. Those cases, and other
decisions cited by the parties and amici, provide little guidance on the
standard that should govern petitioners' challenge to
In Wilkerson v.
Next, in In
re Kemmler … (1890), death by electrocution was the assailed method of
execution. The Court reiterated that the Eighth Amendment prohibits
"torture" and "lingering death." The word
"cruel," the Court further observed, "implies ... something
inhuman ... something more than the mere extinguishment of life." … Those
statements, however, were made en passant. Kemmler's actual holding was that the
Eighth Amendment does not apply to the States, … a
proposition we have since repudiated, see, e.g., Robinson v.
Finally, in
No clear standard
for determining the constitutionality of a method of execution emerges from
these decisions. Moreover, the age of the opinions limits their utility as an
aid to resolution of the present controversy. The Eighth Amendment, we have
held, " 'must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency
that mark the progress of a maturing society.' … Wilkerson was
decided 129 years ago, Kemmler 118 years ago, and Resweber 61
years ago. Whatever little light our prior method-of-execution cases might shed
is thus dimmed by the passage of time.
Further phrases
and tests can be drawn from more recent decisions, for example, Gregg
v.
Relying on Gregg and our
earlier decisions, the Kentucky Supreme Court stated that an execution
procedure violates the Eighth Amendment if it "creates a substantial risk
of wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, torture or lingering death."
… Petitioners respond that courts should consider "(a) the severity of
pain risked, (b) the likelihood of that pain occurring, and (c) the
extent to which alternative means are feasible." … The plurality settles
somewhere in between, requiring a "substantial risk of serious harm"
and considering whether a "feasible, readily implemented" alternative
can "significantly reduce" that risk. …
I agree with
petitioners and the plurality that the degree of risk, magnitude of pain, and
availability of alternatives must be considered. I part ways with the plurality, however, to the extent its "substantial
risk" test sets a fixed threshold for the first factor. The three factors
are interrelated; a strong showing on one reduces the importance of the others.
Lethal injection
as a mode of execution can be expected, in most instances, to result in
painless death. Rare though errors may be, the
consequences of a mistake about the condemned inmate's consciousness are
horrendous and effectively undetectable after injection of the second drug.
Given the opposing tugs of the degree of risk and magnitude of pain, the
critical question here, as I see it, is whether a feasible alternative exists.
Proof of "a slightly or marginally safer alternative" is, as the
plurality notes, insufficient. … But if readily available measures can materially increase
the likelihood that the protocol will cause no pain, a State fails to adhere to
contemporary standards of decency if it declines to employ those measures.
II
Other
than using qualified and trained personnel to establish IV access, however,
The warden relies
on visual observation to determine whether the inmate "appears"
unconscious. …
In
Nor does
A consciousness
check supplementing the warden's visual observation before injection of the
second drug is easily implemented and can reduce a risk of dreadful pain.
Pancuronium bromide is a powerful paralytic that prevents all voluntary muscle
movement. Once it is injected, further monitoring of the inmate's consciousness
becomes impractical without sophisticated equipment and training. Even if the
inmate were conscious and in excruciating pain, there would be no visible
indication.
Recognizing the
importance of a window between the first and second drugs, other States have
adopted safeguards not contained in
These checks
provide a degree of assurance--missing from
The risk that an
error administering sodium thiopental would go undetected is minimal,
First,
Second, the
inmate may receive enough sodium thiopental to mask the most obvious signs of
consciousness without receiving a dose sufficient to achieve a surgical plane
of anesthesia. … If the drug is injected too quickly, the increase in blood
pressure can cause the inmate's veins to burst after a small amount of sodium
thiopental has been administered. …
"The easiest
and most obvious way to ensure that an inmate is unconscious during an
execution," petitioners argued to the Kentucky Supreme Court, "is to
check for consciousness prior to injecting pancuronium [bromide]." … The court did not address petitioners'
argument. I would therefore remand with instructions to consider whether the
failure to include readily available safeguards to confirm that the inmate is
unconscious after injection of sodium thiopental, in combination with the other
elements of