A man on death row with a severe medical condition causing tumors filled with blood to form on his head and mouth argued that Missouri’s execution procedures (lethal injection) will likely cause him to choke to death on his own blood. Surely, he asserted, this sentence fell under “cruel and unusual punishment” and should be replaced with an alternate, less painful death (nitrogen gas poisoning). The 5-4 decision of the court was that Mr. Bucklew failed to satisfy the Baze-Glossip test (precedents involving capital punishment/cruelty and exceptions). According to the Supreme Court, his arguments--both the problems and possible solution--were too vague and theoretical to substantiate his needs.
The questions directly addressed by the Court were: “Should the Court assume that medical personnel involved with the inmate’s execution are competent to manage his extreme condition and that the procedure will go as planned?” and “Does the Eighth Amendment require an inmate to prove an adequate alternative method of execution when raising an as-applied challenge to the state's proposed method of execution based on his rare and severe medical condition?”
There are many questions to consider here, not the least of these being the constitutionality of the death penalty itself. So, what do you think? How would you answer these queries? Should the Court go so much off of precedents and “stare decisis” that it does not consider greatly differing circumstances that might require a different decision?
