The Supreme Court's Conservatives Just Legalized Torture

[babylonsister]

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Just Legalized Torture
In an appalling death penalty opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch just overturned 60 years of precedent.

By Mark Joseph Stern
April 01, 20191:14 PM


On Monday, five justices of the Supreme Court authorized Missouri to torture a man to death. In the process, they appear to have overruled decades of Eighth Amendment precedents in a quest to let states impose barbaric punishments, including excruciating executions, on prisoners. The court’s conservative majority has converted a once-fringe view into the law of the land, imperiling dozens of decisions protecting the rights of death row inmates, as well as juvenile offenders. Its ruling signals the end of an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence governed by “civilized standards”—and the beginning of a new, brutal era in American capital punishment.

Russell Bucklew is a death row inmate in Missouri who suffers from a rare medical condition called cavernous hemangioma. Due to this disorder, his body is covered with tumors filled with blood vessels. Tumors in Bucklew’s neck and throat, his lips and uvula, which make it difficult for him to breathe. They are highly sensitive and frequently squirt blood. A medical expert, Dr. Joel Zivot, has testified that if Missouri administers a lethal injection to Bucklew, he will die a slow, agonizing death. His tumors will rupture and fill his mouth with blood, and he will suffocate to death in unbearable pain, choking and convulsing on the gurney as he dies.

more...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/supreme-court-neil-gorsuch-eighth-amendment-death-penalty-torture.html?fbclid=IwAR1BEccPkAQYaPu7ZfHeQ-Vrp3X4ymjUz9wpHpX4OH-5lRXaFpgscKvoY-I

[sakabatou]

1. WTF?!

[UniteFightBack]

2. I really don't know how some people sleep at night. nt

[hlthe2b]

3. While I am a staunch objector to the DP and this is horrific, medically, he could be induced quickly

with a bolus of an induction anesthetic drug, intubated, hooked up to gas anesthesia and given an overdose.

They won't do it, but that would be the kind, humane manner to do so.

[malaise]

4. As I posted earlier, Bush and Cheney made this possible

[BlueTsunami2018]

5. Because this guy is such a scumbag, not many people are going to care.

Murders his ex-girlfriend’s new lover in front of the man’s six year old son, tries to also murder the child, kidnaps the woman and rapes her repeatedly in a car he stole. Not much sympathy is going to be garnered for this asshole.

All this could be avoided if we stopped being so squeamish about executions. Trying to make them bloodless and “humane” is actually worse than hanging the criminal or simply shooting him in the head.

Either kill these people instantaneously and stop trying to pretend that we’re being nice about it or end the practice altogether. All this could be avoided.

[USALiberal]

9. No other country I admire has the DP. Nt

[Horse with no Name]

6. Not that it matters at this point

But I can guarantee this man was relentlessly bullied.
Not condoning what he did, but more than likely no part of this man’s life has been easy or humane....his death won’t be either.

[loyalsister]

7. It's the intent that matters most

If the state is not inflicting horrible pain intentionally it doesn't violate the 8th Amendment, or so Thomas and Gorush say. Exploding blood vessels is simply going to be an unfortunate side effect.

The guy may be a monster and I can see how people might agree that he needs to be removed entirely. But to knowingly cause suffering even if it was not the actual intent is barbaric and sets us on a really frightening road.

[Polybius]

8. Perhaps they were biased after reading up on Russell Bucklew?

In 1996, Bucklew, now 50, stalked his former girlfriend Stephanie Ray at another man’s trailer. He shot and killed the man, Michael Sanders, tried to shoot Ray’s fleeing child and then captured Ray. He handcuffed and raped her, then wounded a police officer in a subsequent gunfight.

Bucklew later escaped from jail and attacked Ray’s mother with a hammer before he was recaptured.

Not that it should sway any SC Justice, but I wonder if it did?