I am 100% against the death penalty, for lots of reasons, but reading this article on the opinions from the SCOTUS made me sick.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said the inmates had failed to identify an available and preferable method of execution and failed to make the case that the challenged drug entailed a substantial risk of severe pain.
A fifth of vodka and a handful of Xanax. A firing squad. Halothane. Propofol. Carbon monoxide.
“Petitioners contend that Oklahoma’s current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment — the chemical equivalent of being burned alive,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “But under the court’s new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death or actually burned at the stake.”
YEP!!!
Justice Scalia responded to what he called “Justice Breyer’s plea for judicial abolition of the death penalty” by calling it “gobbledygook.” The punishment is contemplated by the Constitution, Justice Scalia said, and disingenuously opposed on grounds created by its opponents.
Criticizing the death penalty on the ground that it is not carried out fast enough, for instance, Justice Scalia said, “calls to mind the man sentenced to death for killing his parents, who pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan.”
Scalia, I fucking hate you.
