Justices accept case against lethal injection

By MARK SHERMAN

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to take a look at the method of lethal injection most states use to put inmates to death in a case that could further slow the pace of executions.

The high court will hear a challenge early next year from two inmates on death row in Kentucky -- Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. -- who claim that lethal injection as practiced by the state amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The last time the court considered a challenge to a method of execution was in 1879, when it upheld the use of a firing squad in Utah.

Lethal injections, devised as a humane alternative to electrocution and the gas chamber, have come under attack in recent years amid reports that the three-drug cocktail doesn't always work as quickly as intended and that inmates are subjected to excruciating pain before they die.

The Supreme Court has previously made it easier for death row inmates to contest the lethal injections used across the country for executions.

But until Tuesday, the justices had passed up cases that posed the question of whether the mix of drugs and the way they are administered in three dozen states violate the Constitution. The court will hear arguments in the case on Jan. 7, said David Barron, the prisoners' lawyer.

The inmates' appeal was among 17 new cases the court accepted for its term that begins Monday.

The other high-profile appeal granted Tuesday is a challenge to the constitutionality of a voter photo identification law in Indiana, a partisan issue with ramifications for the 2008 elections. Democrats and civil rights groups say the law unfairly keeps the poor and minorities from voting, while its backers contend it is intended to reduce voter fraud.

Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan and struck one down in Missouri.

There have been 1,098 executions, 927 by lethal injection since the Supreme Court halted executions in 1972 and allowed them to resume in 1976. The annual number of executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and fell to 53 last year. So far in 2007, 41 people have been executed.

No state other than Texas has put to death more than three people this year. Texas has executed 25 inmates by lethal injection.

And with another execution scheduled for Tuesday evening, the state had no plans for a delay, Gov. Rick Perry's office said.

Death penalty opponents said they were hopeful that states and courts would call a temporary halt to executions at least until the high court decides the case, probably by June.

At least 10 states have suspended use of the three-drug method after opponents alleged it was ineffective and cruel, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.