I smite thee! ...The Diary of Nod

Antonin Scalia asks if it's is in the Constitution

SCOTUS is hearing a challenge to executions by lethal injection, on the premise that the injections cause unnecessary pain:

Justice Antonin Scalia noted that execution methods that have fallen out of use — the electric chair, the firing squad, the hangman’s noose — have been abandoned in part because of fears that they were not pain-free.

But where is it written that the state must choose “the least painful method,” Justice Scalia demanded. “Is that somewhere in the Constitution?”

Ahem. The intelligent refer the stupid to Amendment VIII ("eight") of the U.S. Constitution:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

And then a dictionary:

cruel adj. cru·el·er or cru·el·ler, cru·el·est or cru·el·lest
1. Disposed to inflict pain or suffering.
2. Causing suffering; painful.

So if there's a less painful method available and you choose the more painful one, that would seem cruel. Good to know ol' Tony is up on his Constitution. Dumbfuck.

Labels: antonin scalia, capital punishment, politics, scotus

posted by Lachlan @ 6:21 PM