WASHINGTON - A quarter-century has elapsed since the United States experienced as long a pause in executions as the one the Supreme Court has occasioned with its current examination of lethal injections.
No one has been put to death since Sept. 25 and the earliest that executions will probably resume is in the summer. Forty-two people were executed in 2007, the lowest total in 13 years. Last month, New Jersey became the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty.
But when the justices return from their holiday break and hear arguments today in a lethal injection case from Kentucky, their questions are unlikely to focus on whether capital punishment or even the method of lethal injection is right or wrong.
The two death row inmates whose challenge is before the court are not asking to be spared execution or death by injection. Their argument, at its most basic, is that there are ways to get the job done relatively pain-free.
So the court could delve into a highly technical, almost medical, discussion of how executions work in practice:
Do condemned prisoners receive enough anesthesia to knock them out?
Do the people who insert intravenous lines know what they are doing?
Is it best to use a combination of three drugs?
Would it work better to deliver a fatal overdose of barbiturates? That is the method used by terminally ill people in Oregon and by veterinarians in most parts of the country who euthanize animals.
The court also will be weighing what risk of pain is acceptable for prisoners who are being put to death for horrendous crimes and what standard judges should use in evaluating the risk.
Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. were convicted of murder and sentenced to death by juries in Kentucky. Baze killed a sheriff and a deputy who were attempting to arrest him. Bowling shot and killed a couple and wounded their 2-year-old son outside their dry-cleaning business.
The two men, in a 2004 lawsuit, contended that lethal injection as practiced by Kentucky amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The lawyers say other states routinely botch executions by using poorly trained people, complex procedures, and even dim lighting that makes it hard for executioners to see what they are doing. The procedures in many states are kept secret, making challenges to the procedures difficult.
The Bush administration, backing the state, argues that because the Supreme Court has said capital punishment is constitutional, there must be some method for carrying it out.
The case could come down to an examination of the three drugs that are administered in succession to knock out, paralyze, and kill prisoners. If the court decides that the three-drug mix is problematic, it could order states to develop a different procedure.
