Baze v. Rees

The Supreme Court will decide this term whether death sentences carried out by lethal injection violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In the case, Baze v. Rees, No. 07-5439, two inmates are challenging Kentucky's four-drug lethal injection protocol. In the wake of the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari on Sept. 25, states that use the lethal injection method have indicated they will stay executions pending the Court's decision.

The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of lethal injection last year, noting that of the 38 states that permit capital punishment, the majority use the injection method because it is "universally recognized as the most human method of execution and the least apt to cause unnecessary pain." Baze v. Rees, 217 S.W.3d 207, 210 (Ky. 2006).

The lethal injection method calls for the administration of four drugs: Valium, which relaxes the convict, Sodium Pentathol, which knocks the convict unconscious, Pavulon, which stops breathing, and potassium chloride, which essentially puts the convict into cardiac arrest, ultimately causing death.

The Kentucky Supreme Court noted that only one person has been put to death under the state's lethal injection method. It observed that the convict went to sleep within a minute of the first injection and did not move or show any evidence of suffering during the remainder of the process.