Where are we on lethal injection executions?

Rather than comment myself, I thought I would post this informative article from Stateline.org:


What was scheduled to be a busy week in the nations death chambers instead
has offered growing evidence that a moratorium on lethal injection is
materializing across the country even as a U.S. Supreme Court justice
suggested that some executions should go on.

Virginia last night (Oct. 17) became the 16th state where executions by
lethal injection effectively are on hold. The U.S. Supreme Court, without
giving a reason, granted a stay to convicted murderer Christopher Scott
Emmett 4 hours before he was scheduled to die at the Greensville
Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va.

It was the second time this week that a court delayed a lethal injection
with little time to spare. On Monday (Oct. 15), the Nevada Supreme Court
granted a stay to killer William Castillo 90 minutes before he was set to
die, even though Castillo himself did not appeal the punishment and later
expressed disappointment that he was not put to death. The American Civil
Liberties Union of Nevada brought the case.

Arkansas, Ohio and Georgia also were scheduled to execute prisoners using
lethal injection this week, but only the execution in Georgia set for 7
p.m. Friday (Oct. 19) remains a possibility, as earlier court decisions
delayed the other executions. (Blogger's update: the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed Friday's scheduled execution, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's acceptance of cert in the Kentucky case.)

The flurry of activity follows the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Sept.
25 to hear Baze v. Rees, a case brought by 2 Kentucky prisoners who argue
that lethal injection as it is carried out by 36 states amounts to cruel
and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. (See related
story: Lethal injection goes on trial, but goes on)

The high courts decision last month to enter the debate over lethal
injection has had an immediate chilling effect across the country, as
lawyers for death-row prisoners have argued that states should not carry
out death sentences using a method that may be ruled unconstitutional.
Executions in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Texas were suspended after
the Supreme Court took up the Kentucky prisoners challenge, and Nevada and
Virginia joined those states this week.

Speaking directly to the possibility of a nationwide moratorium on lethal
injection, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Tuesday (Oct. 16)
cautioned that stopping all executions by that method wasn't the high
court's intention when it agreed to hear Baze v. Rees. Just because the
justices agreed to take on the case, Scalia said, doesn't necessarily mean
that a moratorium should ensue.

Overall, 16 states now have governor-imposed or court-ordered holds on
lethal injection: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware,
Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina,
Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

Lethal injection was placed on hold in 10 of those states before the
Supreme Court agreed to hear Baze v. Rees, underscoring the legal
uncertainty that has surrounded the procedure for much of the past 2
years.

Meanwhile, only 2 states where lethal injections are not on hold Georgia
and Mississippi have set execution dates for prisoners before next
spring, when the Supreme Court is expected to rule in Baze v. Rees,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which maintains an
updated list of upcoming executions. (Blogger's update: slight error here. Alabama and Florida still have executions pending. We hope these will be stayed. But as of right now, they remain pending and should be considered serious dates.)

After Georgia's scheduled execution on Friday and another in that state
set for Oct. 23 Mississippi is scheduled to execute Earl Wesley Berry on
Oct. 30.

On Tuesday, Scalia disagreed with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal's
decision to stay the execution of Arkansas death-row inmate Jack Harold
Jones Jr., who was scheduled to die that day.

Scalia, dissenting from the Supreme Court majority, wrote that the circuit
court's opinion was "based on the mistaken premise that our grant of
certiorari in Baze v. Rees calls for the stay of every execution in which
an individual raises an Eighth Amendment challenge to the lethal injection
protocol."

Granting certiorari means the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case.

"The grant of certiorari in a single case does not alter the application
of normal rules of procedure," Scalia wrote.

Legal experts said Scalias statement gave a good indication of his
personal views, but did not necessarily signal that a national moratorium
would be averted.

"The fact that it's a dissent says more than anything. It suggests that a
majority of the court disagrees with that perspective," said Bryan
Stevenson, a law professor at New York University and executive director
of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit legal clinic.

In the meantime, lower courts already have begun to issue stays of
execution on their own, Stevenson said, pointing to the Nevada Supreme
Courts decision this week, as well as a decision by the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals earlier this month.

Attention now remains focused on Georgia, where state officials have vowed
to move ahead with the execution Friday of killer Jack Alderman, as well
as the scheduled execution by lethal injection on Oct. 23 of Curtis
Osborne.

The Georgia Supreme Court this week rejected Alderman's request for a
stay, arguing as Scalia did that the U.S. Supreme Court "has not yet
indicated that, in cases in this posture, all executions by lethal
injection should be stayed," according to the Georgia courts opinion.

But Michael Siem, one of the lawyers working on a stay for Alderman, told
Stateline.org that the precedent already has been set at least for now.

"Our position is this: Every state but Virginia and Georgia has stayed
executions [scheduled since the court agreed to hear Baze v. Rees]," Siem
said before last night's stay in Virginia. "If that isn't a direct
indication to the states what they should be doing, I don't know what is."