Lethal Injection

The ethical issues at stake are wide-ranging and complicated as the justices deliberate whether the three-drug “death cocktail” currently used in Kentucky carries a risk of pain and suffering sufficient to violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Baze v. Rees, a Kentucky case challenging current practices regarding lethal injection—the modality of death in almost all of the 38 states that allow capital punishment. However, as the case turns out, one of the most troubling aspects of lethal injection will remain at issue: the involvement of physicians in the process of execution.