Justices will clarify how death-row prisoners can contest a state’s method of execution

Justices will clarify how death-row prisoners can contest a state’s method of execution

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The Supreme Court doesn’t care all that much for method-of-execution challenges. It particularly disfavors Eighth Amendment litigation attacking familiar lethal injection protocols as “cruel and unusual” punishment. In the past 20 years, the court has announced substantive constitutional law, pleading requirements, and timeliness rules that make it harder to win such arguments. Nance v. Ward (to be argued on Monday) is about the procedural vehicle that prisoners must use to challenge execution methods. The case is important because Georgia’s … Read the rest