Death Penalty Challenged
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the use of lethal injections to execute inmates -- a procedure that may inflict unnecessary pain and suffering -- violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments.
The high court will hear a challenge from two inmates on death row in Kentucky - Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. - who sued Kentucky in 2004, claiming lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Baze has been scheduled for execution Tuesday night, but the Kentucky Supreme Court halted the proceedings earlier this month.
There are, of course, broader reasons to oppose the death penalty, as a new ABA study of capital punishment in Ohio demonstrates.
The system is full of racial and geographic imbalances, too many defendants don't get adequate legal help and too many protections of offenders' rights are absent from the capital punishment process, according to a 30-month review of Ohio's death penalty system by the American Bar Association.
The authors of the report want Ohio to suspend executions until the flaws in its criminal justice system are corrected. That would be good advice for every state that relies on death as a punishment.
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