At issue in the Schwab case, as in the Kentucky case, are the constitutionality of the methods used for carrying out lethal injection and the standard by which courts should evaluate the evidence that lethal injection is constitutional.
Questions are already being raised about the legality, even constitutionality, of the government's methods.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Monday in Baze v. Rees, the Kentucky case that has led to a de facto national moratorium on executions, it will mostly be concerned with the question of what standard courts must use to assess the constitutionality of execution methods under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.
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.
In the most recent, he accused the state of Missouri of hiding "behind the hangman's cloak by refusing to disclose pertinent information to the inmates … It is fundamentally important the state is sufficiently transparent about its protocol to allow adequate review of the constitutionality of its chosen method".
For the first time since 1878, when the Supreme Court gave its approval to Utah's firing squad, it will rule on the constitutionality of a particular method of capital punishment.
Mr. Wilson's lawsuit challenges the method rather the constitutionality of the execution procedure.
MIAMI, Nov. 14 — Citing a pending Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of lethal injection methods, a federal judge granted a stay of execution on Wednesday for a man who had been scheduled to die on Thursday evening for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old boy.
(There's some uncertainty about the constitutionality of the law).
The court will now mull the constitutionality of the law.
