In a one-page order issued Tuesday night explaining the 5-to-4 vote to vacate Judge Silver's temporary restraining order, the Supreme Court stated that Judge Silver's reasoning was flawed, because the case affirming the constitutionality of the three-drug execution method, Baze v. Rees, had a high standard of proof that an execution method would cause harm.
Litigation brought against Ohio by McGuire's family questioning the constitutionality of his execution is ongoing.
Moreover, in the 13 years since the court last considered the constitutionality of juvenile executions, a national trend has emerged against applying the death penalty to defendants under 18.
This lack of transparency prevents the courts from assessing the constitutionality of VDOC's execution procedure".
The condemned must have clear information about the drugs to be used, so that the courts can make an accurate assessment of the viability and constitutionality of any impending execution," said Levin.
A lawsuit filed by public defender Dale Baich last year challenged the constitutionality of Arizona's secrecy over capital punishment ahead of the execution of inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood, arguing that he and other plaintiffs had a 1st Amendment right to know how the state would execute them.
Executions there have been put on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the existing protocol, which last year resulted in the botched execution of an inmate named Clayton Lockett, who remained alive for forty-three minutes after his injections began, bleeding profusely and groaning, apparently in pain.
"There were no glimpses of the execution.
The date of the execution remains unclear.
Petitioners' brief on the merits is due on March 9 which is four days after the last of the three scheduled executions.Whatever one thinks of the justice or constitutionality of the death penalty, this month's sequence of events brings to mind Justice Blackmun's aversion to "tinkering with the machinery of death".
