The Supreme Court made it clear on Monday that the U.S. Constitution does not gu...
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court made it clear on Monday that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a prisoner sentenced to capital punishment “a painless death,” paving the way for the execution of a convicted murderer who sought to die by lethal gas rather than lethal injection because of a rare medical condition.
In a decision written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court ruled 5-4 that Bucklew had failed to present enough evidence for them to let him ask a lower court to allow him to be executed by lethal gas. The court’s five conservatives were in the majority and its four liberals dissented. There was no evidence that Bucklew’s chosen alternative - lethal gas - would be any less painful, said Gorsuch, who was appointed to the court by President Donald Trump in 2017.“Yet since then, he has managed to secure delay through lawsuit after lawsuit,” Gorsuch wrote.
Bucklew’s appeal neither contested his guilt nor sought to avoid execution. Lawyers for the state have said that although lethal gas is authorized, it has never been used and there are no protocols for it.
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