The stupid controversy over whether lethal injections are painful and therefore unconstitutionally curel and unusual punishment has affected three inmates on federal death row in Terre Haute, reports the Tribune-Star:
Three federal death row inmates who contend in a lawsuit that lethal injections are painful have been granted a stay of execution, court records show.
U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle ordered a preliminary injunction Feb. 24, barring the Bureau of Prisons from executing James H. Roane Jr., Richard Tipton and Cory Johnson.
The three co-defendants had been scheduled to die in May at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, home to the nation's federal death row. The trio were sentenced to die after being convicted in a string of drug-related murders in Richmond, Va.
[. . .]
This case marks at least the sixth since January in which executions have been delayed after inmates have raised legal challenges about the lethal injection process, according to information on Death Penalty Information Center's Web site.
At least six other men, included one from Indiana, have been executed in the same time period.
The injunction in the federal death case is indefinite, until further order of the court.
I don't care how painful lethal injections are -- it's a very short burst of it before the long sleep and much less agonizing than the previous methods of executiuon used. This is just one more in a long string of objections raised by people who are against the death penalty in all cases in all its forms. (See tonight's Evening Forum, by the way, for an editorial on the need to dispatch Simon Rios to the long sleep.)
We need to look at this short burst of pain, if it exists, philosophically, as one last chance to get the killer's attention: "Owww! Man, did I screw up."
(Via the Indiana Law Blog)
