SCOTUS Rejects ‘Painless’ Capital Punishment
Pain during the administration of the death penalty does not violate the Eighth Amendment.
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s protection against “cruel and unusual” punishments does not mandate that the administration of capital punishment be “a painless death.” Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, “The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death — something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.”
The case in question was Bucklew v Precythe, in which the state of Missouri was seeking to carry out its death sentence via lethal injection against convicted murderer and rapist Russell Bucklew. “The state of Missouri and the victims of Russell Bucklew’s crimes have waited 23 long years for this just and lawful sentence to be carried out,” asserted Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. He added, “With today’s ruling we are one step closer to justice.”
For many observers, this case serves as yet another example of the slowness of the U.S. justice system. Gorsuch seemed to lament this reality when he wrote, “[Bucklew] has managed to secure delay through lawsuit after lawsuit.” And it is important to note that Bucklew never challenged his guilt nor the justice of his sentencing, but he was able to work the system to delay his execution.
In fact, Gorsuch contended, “Both the State and the victims of crime have an important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence.‘ Those interests have been frustrated in [the Bucklew] case. Even the principal dissent acknowledges that 'the long delays that now typically occur between the time an offender is sentenced to death and his execution’ are ‘excessive.’ The answer is not, as the dissent incongruously suggests, to reward those who interpose delay with a decree ending capital punishment by judicial fiat.”
The Court’s 5-4 ruling also proved to highlight a clear divide among the justices, specifically over the issue of capital punishment. Justice Stephen Breyer once again questioned whether it was possible to execute criminals without violating their rights, stating that “it may be that … there simply is no constitutional way to implement the death penalty.” Somehow, we don’t think that’s what the Founders had in mind when crafting the Eighth Amendment.
