Baze v. Rees

553 U.S. 35

Case Year: 2008

Case Ruling: 7-2, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: Roberts

FACTS

In the mid-nineteenth century, hanging was the dominant method of execution in the United States. In 1888, following the recommendation of a commission created by New York's governor to find "the most humane and practical method known to modern science of carrying into effect the sentence of death," the state became the first to authorize electrocution as a form of capital punishment. By 1915, eleven other states had followed suit out of the belief that electrocution was "less painful and more humane" than hanging.

Electrocution remained the predominant mode of execution for nearly a century, although states used several other methods, including hanging, firing squad, and lethal gas. But, after Gregg v. Georgia (1976), state legislatures began to reconsider electrocution as a means of assuring a humane death. In 1977 legislators in Oklahoma, after consulting with the head of the anesthesiology department at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, introduced the first bill proposing lethal injection as the state's method of execution.

Today, like every other state that imposes capital punishment, Kentucky uses lethal injection to carry out its death penalty sentences. The injection protocol involves a combination of three drugs: the first (sodium thiopental) induces unconsciousness and ensures that the recipient does not suffer any pain from the paralysis induced by the second drug (pancuronium bromide) and the cardiac arrest caused by the third injection (potassium chloride).

Ralph Baze shot and killed two Kentucky law enforcement officers in 1992. Thomas Bowling was convicted of the 1990 slaying of a man and his wife who were sitting in their automobile. Both were sentenced to die. Concerned that the lethal injection procedure causes significant pain when it is applied improperly, Baze and Bowling argued that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. The trial court concluded that Kentucky's procedures complied with the Constitution, and the state supreme court affirmed.

 

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS ANNOUNCED THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT AND DELIVERED AN OPINION, IN WHICH JUSTICE KENNEDY AND JUSTICE ALITO JOIN.

We begin with the principle . . . that capital punishment is constitutional. It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out. Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution--no matter how humane--if only from the prospect of error in following the required procedure. It is clear, then, that the Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions.

Petitioners do not claim that it does. Rather, they contend that the Eight Amendment prohibits procedures that create an "unnecessary risk" of pain. Specifically, they argue that courts must evaluate "(a) the severity of pain risked, (b) the likelihood of that pain occurring, and (c) the extent to which alternative means are feasible, either by modifying existing execution procedures or adopting alternative procedures."...

Kentucky responds that this "unnecessary risk" standard is tantamount to a requirement that States adopt the "'least risk'" alternative in carrying out an execution, a standard the Commonwealth contends will cast recurring constitutional doubt on any procedure adopted by the States....

Petitioners do not claim that lethal injection or the proper administration of the particular protocol adopted by Kentucky by themselves constitute the cruel or wanton infliction of pain. Quite the contrary, they concede that "if performed properly," an execution carried out under Kentucky's procedures would be "humane and constitutional.""...

Instead, petitioners claim that there is a significant risk that the procedures will not be properly followed--in particular, that the sodium thiopental will not be properly administered to achieve its intended effect--resulting in severe pain when the other chemicals are administered. . . . To establish that such exposure violates the Eighth Amendment, however, the conditions presenting the risk must be " sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering," and give rise to "sufficiently imminent dangers. We have explained that to prevail on such a claim there must be a "substantial risk of serious harm," an "objectively intolerable risk of harm" that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were "subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment."

Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of "objectively intolerable risk of harm" that qualifies as cruel and unusual. In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber (1947), a plurality of the Court upheld a second attempt at executing a prisoner by electrocution after a mechanical malfunction had interfered with the first attempt. The principal opinion noted that "[a]ccidents happen for which no man is to blame," and concluded that such "an accident, with no suggestion of malevolence," did not give rise to an Eighth Amendment violation. . . . Much of petitioners' case rests on the contention that they have identified a significant risk of harm that can be eliminated by adopting alternative procedures, such as a one-drug protocol that dispenses with the use of pancuronium and potassium chloride, and additional monitoring by trained personnel to ensure that the first dose of sodium thiopental has been adequately delivered. . . . [A] condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a State's method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative.

Permitting an Eighth Amendment violation to be established on such a showing would threaten to transform courts into boards of inquiry charged with determining "best practices" for executions, with each ruling supplanted by another round of litigation touting a new and improved methodology. Such an approach finds no support in our cases, would embroil the courts in ongoing scientific controversies beyond their expertise, and would substantially intrude on the role of state legislatures in implementing their execution procedures. . . . Instead, the proffered alternatives must effectively address a "substantial risk of serious harm." To qualify, the alternative procedure must be feasible, readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain. If a State refuses to adopt such an alternative in the face of these documented advantages, without a legitimate penological justification for adhering to its current method of execution, then a State's refusal to change its method can be viewed as "cruel and unusual" under the Eighth Amendment.

. . . [W]e note at the outset that it is difficult to regard a practice as "objectively intolerable" when it is in fact widely tolerated. Thirty-six States that sanction capital punishment have adopted lethal injection as the preferred method of execution. The Federal Government uses lethal injection as well. . . .

In order to meet their "heavy burden" of showing that Kentucky's procedure is "cruelly inhumane," petitioners point to numerous aspects of the protocol that they contend create opportunities for error. Their claim hinges on the improper administration of the first drug, sodium thiopental. It is uncontested that, failing a proper dose of sodium thiopental that would render the prisoner unconscious, there is a substantial, constitutionally unacceptable risk of suffocation from the administration of pancuronium bromide and pain from the injection of potassium chloride. We agree with the state trial court and State Supreme Court, however, that petitioners have not shown that the risk of an inadequate dose of the first drug is substantial. And we reject the argument that the Eighth Amendment requires Kentucky to adopt the untested alternative procedures petitioners have identified. Petitioners contend that there is a risk of improper administration of thiopental because the doses are difficult to mix into solution form and load into syringes; because the protocol fails to establish a rate of injection, which could lead to a failure of the IV; because it is possible that the IV catheters will infiltrate into surrounding tissue, causing an inadequate dose to be delivered to the vein; because of inadequate facilities and training; and because Kentucky has no reliable means of monitoring the anesthetic depth of the prisoner after the sodium thiopental has been administered.

As for the risk that the sodium thiopental would be improperly prepared, petitioners contend that Kentucky employs untrained personnel who are unqualified to calculate and mix an adequate dose, especially in light of the omission of volume and concentration amounts from the written protocol. The state trial court, however, specifically found that "[i]f the manufacturers' instructions for reconstitution of Sodium Thiopental are followed, . . . there would be minimal risk of improper mixing, despite converse testimony that a layperson would have difficulty performing this task.". . .

Likewise, the asserted problems related to the IV lines do not establish a sufficiently substantial risk of harm to meet the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. Kentucky has put in place several important safeguards to ensure that an adequate dose of sodium thiopental is delivered to the condemned prisoner. . . .

. . . In light of these safeguards, we cannot say that the risks identified by petitioners are so substantial or imminent as to amount to an Eighth Amendment violation. . . .

. . . [T]he Commonwealth's continued use of the three-drug protocol cannot be viewed as posing an "objectively intolerable risk" when no other State has adopted the one-drug method and petitioners proffered no study showing that it is an equally effective manner of imposing a death sentence. Indeed, the State of Tennessee, after reviewing its execution procedures, rejected a proposal to adopt a one-drug protocol using sodium thiopental. . . . [T]he comparative efficacy of a one-drug method of execution is not so well established that Kentucky's failure to adopt it constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment. . . .

Petitioners also fault the Kentucky protocol for lacking a systematic mechanism for monitoring the "anesthetic depth" of the prisoner. Under petitioners' scheme, qualified personnel would employ monitoring equipment, such as a Bispectral Index (BIS) monitor, blood pressure cuff, or EKG to verify that a prisoner has achieved sufficient unconsciousness before injecting the final two drugs. The visual inspection performed by the warden and deputy warden, they maintain, is an inadequate substitute for the more sophisticated procedures they envision. . . .

. . . Kentucky's expert testified that a blood pressure cuff would have no utility in assessing the level of the prisoner's unconsciousness following the introduction of sodium thiopental, which depresses circulation. Furthermore, the medical community has yet to endorse the use of a BIS monitor, which measures brain function, as an indication of anesthetic awareness. The asserted need for a professional anesthesiologist to interpret the BIS monitor readings is nothing more than an argument against the entire procedure, given that both Kentucky law and the American Society of Anesthesiologists' own ethical guidelines prohibit anesthesiologists from participating in capital punishment. Nor is it pertinent that the use of a blood pressure cuff and EKG is "the standard of care in surgery requiring anesthesia." . . .

The dissent would continue the stay of these executions (and presumably the many others held in abeyance pending decision in this case) and send the case back to the lower courts to determine whether such added measures redress an "untoward" risk of pain. But an inmate cannot succeed on an Eighth Amendment claim simply by showing one more step the State could take as a failsafe for other, independently adequate measures. This approach would serve no meaningful purpose and would frustrate the State's legitimate interest in carrying out a sentence of death in a timely manner.

. . . A stay of execution may not be granted on grounds such as those asserted here unless the condemned prisoner establishes that the State's lethal injection protocol creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain. He must show that the risk is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives. A State with a lethal injection protocol substantially similar to the protocol we uphold today would not create a risk that meets this standard.

Reasonable people of good faith disagree on the morality and efficacy of capital punishment, and for many who oppose it, no method of execution would ever be acceptable. . . . This Court has ruled that capital punishment is not prohibited under our Constitution, and that the States may enact laws specifying that sanction. State efforts to implement capital punishment must certainly comply with the Eighth Amendment, but what that Amendment prohibits is wanton exposure to "objectively intolerable risk," not simply the possibility of pain.

Kentucky has adopted a method of execution believed to be the most humane available, one it shares with 35 other States. Petitioners agree that, if administered as intended, that procedure will result in a painless death. The risks of maladministration they have suggested--such as improper mixing of chemicals and improper setting of IVs by trained and experienced personnel--cannot remotely be characterized as "objectively intolerable." Kentucky's decision to adhere to its protocol despite these asserted risks, while adopting safeguards to protect against them, cannot be viewed as probative of the wanton infliction of pain under the Eighth Amendment. Finally, the alternative that petitioners belatedly propose has problems of its own, and has never been tried by a single State.

Throughout our history, whenever a method of execution has been challenged in this Court as cruel and unusual, the Court has rejected the challenge. Our society has nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of carrying out capital punishment. The firing squad, hanging, the electric chair, and the gas chamber have each in turn given way to more humane methods, culminating in today's consensus on lethal injection. The broad framework of the Eighth Amendment has accommodated this progress toward more humane methods of execution, and our approval of a particular method in the past has not precluded legislatures from taking the steps they deem appropriate, in light of new developments, to ensure humane capital punishment. There is no reason to suppose that today's decision will be any different.

The judgment below concluding that Kentucky's procedure is consistent with the Eighth Amendment is, accordingly, affirmed.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE ALITO, CONCURRING.

Since we assume for present purposes that lethal injection is constitutional, the use of that method by the Federal Government and the States must not be blocked by procedural requirements that cannot practicably be satisfied.

Prominent among the practical constraints that must be taken into account in considering the feasibility and availability of any suggested modification of a lethal injection protocol are the ethical restrictions applicable to medical professionals. The first step in the lethal injection protocols currently in use is the anesthetization of the prisoner. If this step is carried out properly, it is agreed, the prisoner will not experience pain during the remainder of the procedure. Every day, general anesthetics are administered to surgical patients in this country, and if the medical professionals who participate in these surgeries also participated in the anesthetization of prisoners facing execution by lethal injection, the risk of pain would be minimized. But the ethics rules of medical professionals--for reasons that I certainly do not question here--prohibit their participation in executions.

Guidelines issued by the American Medical Association (AMA) state that "[a]n individual's opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual," but that "[a] physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution." . . .

The head of ethics at the AMA has reportedly opined that "[e]ven helping to design a more humane protocol would disregard the AMA code."

The American Nurses Association (ANA) takes the position that participation in an execution "is a breach of the ethical traditions of nursing, and the Code for Nurses." . . .

Objections to features of a lethal injection protocol must be considered against the backdrop of the ethics rules of medical professionals and related practical constraints. Assuming, as previously discussed, that lethal injection is not unconstitutionalper se, it follows that a suggested modification of a lethal injection protocol cannot be regarded as "feasible" or "readily" available if the modification would require participation--either in carrying out the execution or in training those who carry out the execution--by persons whose professional ethics rules or traditions impede their participation. . . .

Petitioners' chief argument is that Kentucky's procedure violates the Eighth Amendment because it does not employ a one-drug protocol involving a lethal dose of an anesthetic. By "relying . . . on a lethal dose of an anesthetic," petitioners contend, Kentucky "would virtually eliminate the risk of pain." Petitioners point to expert testimony in the trial court that "a three-gram dose of thiopental would cause death within three minutes to fifteen minutes."

The accuracy of that testimony is not universally accepted. Indeed, the medical authorities in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is legal, have recommended against the use of a lethal dose of a barbiturate. . . .

Misinterpretation of the standard set out in the plurality opinion or adoption of the standard favored by the dissent and Justice Breyer would create a grave danger of extended delay. The dissenters and Justice Breyer would hold that the protocol used in carrying out an execution by lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment if it creates an " untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain." Determining whether a risk is "untoward," we are told, requires a weighing of three factors--the severity of the pain that may occur, the likelihood of this pain, and the availability of alternative methods. We are further informed that "[t]he three factors are interrelated; a strong showing on one reduces the importance of others." An "untoward" risk is presumably a risk that is "unfortunate" or "marked by or causing trouble or unhappiness." This vague and malleable standard would open the gates for a flood of litigation that would go a long way toward bringing about the end of the death penalty as a practical matter. . . .

The issue presented in this case--the constitutionality of a method of execution--should be kept separate from the controversial issue of the death penalty itself. If the Court wishes to reexamine the latter issue, it should do so directly, as Justice Stevens now suggests. The Court should not produce a de facto ban on capital punishment by adopting method-of-execution rules that lead to litigation gridlock.

JUSTICE STEVENS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

[T]he imposition of the death penalty represents "the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment." Furman [ v. Georgia, 1972] (White, J. concurring).

The conclusion that I have reached with regard to the constitutionality of the death penalty itself makes my decision in this case particularly difficult. It does not, however, justify a refusal to respect precedents that remain a part of our law. This Court has held that the death penalty is constitutional, and has established a framework for evaluating the constitutionality of particular methods of execution. Under those precedents, . . . I am persuaded that the evidence adduced by petitioners fails to prove that Kentucky's lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment. Accordingly, I join the Court's judgment.

JUSTICE SCALIA, WITH WHOM JUSTICE THOMAS JOINS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

I join the opinion of Justice Thomas concurring in the judgment. I write separately to provide what I think is needed response to Justice Stevens' separate opinion.

[Justice Stevens's] conclusion is insupportable as an interpretation of the Constitution, which generally leaves it to democratically elected legislatures rather than courts to decide what makes significant contribution to social or public purposes. Besides that more general proposition, the very text of the document recognizes that the death penalty is a permissible legislative choice. The Eighth Amendment expressly requires a presentment or indictment of a grand jury to hold a person to answer for "a capital, or otherwise infamous crime," and prohibits deprivation of "life" without due process of law. The same Congress that proposed the Eighth Amendment also enacted the Act of April 30, 1790, which made several offenses punishable by death. . . . There is simply no legal authority for the proposition that the imposition of death as a criminal penalty is unconstitutional other than the opinions in Furman v. Georgia, which established a nationwide moratorium on capital punishment that Justice Stevens had a hand in ending four years later in Gregg. . . .

I take no position on the desirability of the death penalty, except to say that its value is eminently debatable and the subject of deeply, indeed passionately, held views--which means, to me, that it is preeminently not a matter to be resolved here. And especially not when it is explicitly permitted by the Constitution.

JUSTICE THOMAS, WITH WHOM JUSTICE SCALIA JOINS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

Although I agree that petitioners have failed to establish that Kentucky's lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment, I write separately because I cannot subscribe to the plurality opinion's formulation of the governing standard. As I understand it, that opinion would hold that a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment if it poses a substantial risk of severe pain that could be significantly reduced by adopting readily available alternative procedures. This standard--along with petitioners' proposed "unnecessary risk" standard and the dissent's "untoward risk" standard--finds no support in the original understanding of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause or in our previous method-of-execution cases; casts constitutional doubt on long-accepted methods of execution; and injects the Court into matters it has no institutional capacity to resolve. Because, in my view, a method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment only if it is deliberately designed to inflict pain, I concur only in the judgment.

The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on the "inflict[ion]" of "cruel and unusual punishments" must be understood in light of the historical practices that led the Framers to include it in the Bill of Rights. Justice Stevens' ruminations notwithstanding, it is clear that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit the death penalty. . . .

Consistent with the original understanding of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, this Court's cases have repeatedly taken the view that the Framers intended to prohibit torturous modes of punishment akin to those that formed the historical backdrop of the Eighth Amendment. . . .

We have never suggested that a method of execution is "cruel and unusual" within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment simply because it involves a risk of pain--whether "substantial," "unnecessary," or "untoward"--that could be reduced by adopting alternative procedures. And for good reason. It strains credulity to suggest that the defining characteristic of burning at the stake, disemboweling, drawing and quartering, beheading, and the like was that they involved risks of pain that could be eliminated by using alternative methods of execution. Quite plainly, what defined these punishments was that they were designed to inflict torture as a way of enhancing a death sentence; they were intended to produce a penalty worse than death. . . . The evil the Eighth Amendment targets is intentional infliction of gratuitous pain, and that is the standard our method-of-execution cases have explicitly or implicitly invoked. . . .

It is not a little ironic--and telling--that lethal injection, hailed just a few years ago as the humane alternative in light of which every other method of execution was deemed an unconstitutional relic of the past, is the subject of today's challenge. . . .

In short, I reject as both unprecedented and unworkable any standard that would require the courts to weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of different methods of execution or of different procedures for implementing a given method of execution. . . .

. . . Because Kentucky's lethal injection protocol is designed to eliminate pain rather than to inflict it, petitioners' challenge must fail. I accordingly concur in the Court's judgment affirming the decision below. JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in the judgment.

Assuming the lawfulness of the death penalty itself, petitioners argue that Kentucky's method of execution, lethal injection, nonetheless constitutes a constitutionally forbidden, "cruel and usual punishmen[t]." In respect to how a court should review such a claim, I agree with Justice Ginsburg. She highlights the relevant question, whether the method creates an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary suffering. I agree that the relevant factors--the "degree of risk," the "magnitude of pain," and the "availability of alternatives"--are interrelated and each must be considered. At the same time, I believe that the legal merits of the kind of claim presented must inevitably turn not so much upon the wording of an intermediate standard of review as upon facts and evidence. And I cannot find, either in the record in this case or in the literature on the subject, sufficient evidence that Kentucky's execution method poses the "significant and unnecessary risk of inflicting severe pain" that petitioners assert. . . .

The death penalty itself, of course, brings with it serious risks, for example, risks of executing the wrong person, risks that unwarranted animus (in respect, e.g. , to the race of victims) may play a role, risks that those convicted will find themselves on death row for many years, perhaps decades, to come. These risks in part explain why that penalty is so controversial. But the lawfulness of the death penalty is not before us. And petitioners' proof and evidence, while giving rise to legitimate concern, do not show that Kentucky's method of applying the death penalty amounts to "cruel and unusual punishmen[t]."

JUSTICE GINSBURG, WITH WHOM JUSTICE SOUTER JOINS, DISSENTING.

The constitutionality of Kentucky's protocol . . . turns on whether inmates are adequately anesthetized by the first drug in the protocol, sodium thiopental. Kentucky's system is constitutional, the plurality states, because "petitioners have not shown that the risk of an inadequate dose of the first drug is substantial." . . . Kentucky's protocol lacks basic safeguards used by other States to confirm that an inmate is unconscious before injection of the second and third drugs. I would vacate and remand with instructions to consider whether Kentucky's omission of those safeguards poses an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain. . . .

Lethal injection as a mode of execution can be expected, in most instances, to result in painless death. Rare though errors may be, the consequences of a mistake about the condemned inmate's consciousness are horrendous and effectively undetectable after injection of the second drug. Given the opposing tugs of the degree of risk and magnitude of pain, the critical question here, as I see it, is whether a feasible alternative exists. . . . [I]f readily available measures can materially increase the likelihood that the protocol will cause no pain, a State fails to adhere to contemporary standards of decency if it declines to employ those measures. . . .

Other than using qualified and trained personnel to establish IV access, however, Kentucky does little to ensure that the inmate receives an effective dose of sodium thiopental. After sitting the catheters, the IV team leaves the execution chamber. From that point forward, only the warden and deputy warden remain with the inmate. Neither the warden nor the deputy warden has any medical training.

The warden relies on visual observation to determine whether the inmate "appears" unconscious. . . . No other check for consciousness occurs before injection of pancuronium bromide. Kentucky's protocol does not include an automatic pause in the "rapid flow" of the drugs or any of the most basic tests to determine whether the sodium thiopental has worked. No one calls the inmate's name, shakes him, brushes his eyelashes to test for a reflex, or applies a noxious stimulus to gauge his response.

Nor does Kentucky monitor the effectiveness of the sodium thiopental using readily available equipment, even though the inmate is already connected to an electrocardiogram (EKG). . . .

Recognizing the importance of a window between the first and second drugs, other States have adopted safeguards not contained in Kentucky's protocol. . . .

These checks provide a degree of assurance--missing from Kentucky's protocol--that the first drug has been properly administered. They are simple and essentially costless to employ, yet work to lower the risk that the inmate will be subjected to the agony of conscious suffocation caused by pancuronium bromide and the searing pain caused by potassium chloride. . . .

"The easiest and most obvious way to ensure that an inmate is unconscious during an execution," petitioners argued to the Kentucky Supreme Court, "is to check for consciousness prior to injecting pancuronium [bromide]." The court did not address petitioners' argument. I would therefore remand with instructions to consider whether the failure to include readily available safeguards to confirm that the inmate is unconscious after injection of sodium thiopental, in combination with the other elements of Kentucky's protocol, creates an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain.