Constitution Does Not Ensure ‘Painless’ Execution

“The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution does not guarantee a ‘painless death’ for condemned murderers, deciding that a Missouri inmate may be executed by a lethal injection despite a rare condition that could cause him to suffocate,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“By a 5-4 vote, the court rejected an appeal from Russell Bucklew, who maintained the state must seek out another method of execution, such as lethal gas, to carry out his execution.”

Think Progress: “Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion tosses out a basic assumption which animated the Court’s understanding of what constitutes a ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment for more than half a century. In the process, he writes that the state of Missouri may effectively torture a man to death — so long as it does not gratuitously inflict pain for the sheer purpose of inflicting pain.”