Yesterday, I noted the 8th Circuit ruling and initial news coverage.
Today, AP writer Nate Jenkins reports, "Court ruling could be sign for Neb. death penalty," via the Columbus Telegraph.
Nebraska death-penalty supporters got a sign from Arkansas on Monday that a proposed, lethal-injection protocol might withstand a court challenge if OK'd, as expected, by the governor.
The three-drug protocol in Arkansas is similar to the one expected to be approved by Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arkansas' lethal injection protocol, saying "we conclude that it is designed to avoid the needless infliction of pain, not to cause it."
The 8th Circuit covers Nebraska, as well as Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Its rulings set precedent for courts in those states.
"We're confident of the constitutionality of Nebraska's lethal-injection protocol and this ruling reinforces that confidence," said Allen Forkner, spokesman for Attorney General Jon Bruning.
Last year, Nebraska lawmakers approved lethal injection as a replacement for electrocution.
Their approval followed a 2008 state Supreme Court decision that struck down use of the electric chair, saying it was cruel and unusual punishment.
Nebraska has technically been without a means of carrying out the death penalty since then, but the state hasn't had an execution for 13 years and experts say they don't expect one for several more.
While the court decision bodes well for lethal-injection supporters in Nebraska, it doesn't address issues an attorney said he expected to be raised in the first lawsuits challenging Nebraska's lethal-injection protocol.
"The Nebraska issue relates to the procedure by which the Legislature delegated responsibility to the Department of Corrections," to devise the actual steps in the lethal-injection protocol, said Jerry Soucie. It was Soucie's court challenge while defending death-row inmate Raymond Mata Jr. that led the state Supreme Court to throw out the state's use of the electric chair in 2008."That issue needs to be addressed before you get to the question of the specific protocol."
Today, the Arkansas News Bureau has, "State's lethal injection protocol upheld by appeals court."
The 8th U.S. Court of Appeals at St. Louis has upheld the state’s lethal injection procedures.
The ruling by the three-judge panel on Monday upholds the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by three Arkansas death-row inmates, including two who have already had their execution dates set.
“Based on our review of Arkansas’s lethal injection protocol, we conclude that it is designed ‘to avoid the needless inflection of pain, not to cause it,’” the court ruled.
The ruling also said the inmates “failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact about whether the Arkansas protocol subjects them to a substantial risk of serious harm.”
And:
The law in Kentucky was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. The Arkansas Legislature last year wrote Arkansas’ lethal injection procedures into law, and the state Supreme Court turned away a challenge to the law brought by Arkansas inmates.
Annie Youderian reports, "Court Upholds Lethal Injections in Arkansas," for Courthouse News Service.
The 8th Circuit upheld lethal injections in Arkansas, the latest state to face a constitutional challenge over its three-drug method of capital punishment. Death-row inmates also lost their claim that the state's protocol unconstitutionally allows executioners to inject chemicals directly into an inmate's heart as a last-resort measure.
The St. Louis-based court said the three plaintiffs, all death-row inmates, failed to show that the Arkansas Department of Correction planned to use the extreme direct-injection method, known as "intracardiac infusion," in future executions.
And:
The 8th Circuit said the written Arkansas protocol, like Missouri's, doesn't present a substantial risk of inflicting unnecessary pain.
Other circuit courts have upheld similar three-drug protocols in Delaware and Virginia, following the U.S. Supreme Court's lead in Baze v. Rees, which upheld the procedure in Kentucky.
Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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