Yesterday’s US Supreme Court ruling in Baze v. Rees upholding the constitutionality of
Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures will in all likelihood be followed by moves in various US jurisdictions to resume executions, although the ruling is unlikely to stop litigation on this issue.
Executions in the USA have been suspended since late September 2007 as states waited for
the Supreme Court’s decision. A majority of the 36 death penalty states, and the federal
government, use the same three-drug combination as Kentucky to anesthetize, paralyze and
kill the condemned prisoner. Officials in a number of states, including Florida, Georgia,
Arizona and Ohio, have already suggested that the Baze decision should clear the way to a
resumption of executions in their jurisdictions, and the likelihood of execution dates being set soon in states such as Texas and Alabama is high. [Weiter…]
Amnesty International, Internationales Sekretariat, 17. April 2008