Supreme Court okays torture in death penalty case

Truthdig - Critics said the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in a case brought by a Missouri death row inmate fundamentally erodes protections against torture enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for the court’s right-wing majority in the 5-4 decision, ruling that Russell Bucklew can be executed by lethal injection despite his medical condition, cavernous hemangioma. The disease, warn his legal team and medical experts, will cause Bucklew to choke for several minutes on his own blood before dying as the tumors growing in his throat and elsewhere in his body rupture.

“The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death,” wrote Gorsuch.

The decision was denounced as “atrocious,” “blood-thirsty” and “barbaric” by death penalty abolitionists and other critics, with some saying the high court’s approval of Bucklew’s execution is tantamount to nullifying the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment—the law banning cruel and unusual punishment.