The U.S. Supreme Court has been considering the constitutionality of the lethal injection as a means of capital punishment. The Court today released its opinion in BAZE ET AL. v. REES, COMMISSIONER, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, ET AL.

The plurality opinion of the Court (7-2) ruled that lethal injection is allowable. Ginsburg and Souter filed a dissenting opinion.

Anyway, the ruling clears the way for states — including Oklahoma — who use lethal injection to get back to processing death row inmates and scheduling executions. I previously commented on this issue when Oklahoma AG Drew Edmondson ordered a halt to executions pending the Supremes’ decision.

I pointed out then as I do now that Oklahoma law specifically states two failsafe options in case lethal injection is ruled cruel and unusual punishment (see my previous post, linked above).

First, we revert to electrocution. If electrocution is cruel and unusual, we revert to firing squad. These are both moot points now, though, as lethal injection gets the nod from the Court.

As for the decision of the Court, as usual, the best, most well-reasoned, and originalist analysis of the case at hand comes from the concurring opinion of Justices Thomas and Scalia:

JUSTICE THOMAS, joined by JUSTICE SCALIA, concluded that the plurality’s
formulation of the governing standard finds no support in the
original understanding of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Clause or in this Court’s previous method-of-execution cases; casts
constitutional doubt on long-accepted methods of execution; and injects
the Court into matters it has no institutional capacity to resolve.
The historical practices leading to the Clause’s inclusion in the Bill of
Rights, the views of early commentators on the Constitution, and this
Court’s cases, see, e.g., Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130, 135–136, all
demonstrate that an execution method violates the Eighth Amendment
only if it is deliberately designed to inflict pain. Judged under
that standard, this is an easy case: Because it is undisputed that
Kentucky adopted its lethal injection protocol in an effort to make
capital punishment more humane, not to add elements of terror,
pain, or disgrace to the death penalty, petitioners’ challenge must
fail. Pp. 1–15. (Opinion Syllabus, emphasis added).