The particulars of constitutional challenges over execution methods has generated three modern Supreme Court Eighth Amendment rulings (Baze, Glossip, and Bucklew). Though the state prevailed in all these rulings against condemned prisoners’ various attacks on various lethal injection protocols, litigation over execution methods are still common and the applicable Eighth Amendment jurisprudence remains contested. These realities provide the background for a dissent from the denial of cert in this morning’s SCOTUS order list today by Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, in Hamm v. Smith, No. 22–580. Here are excerpts from the intricate six-page dissent:
In this petition, the State now asks this Court to summarily reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s holding that Smith pleaded a viable Eighth Amendment claim. I would do so. The judgment below rests on flawed Circuit precedent that is irreconcilable with our method-of-execution case law….
In 2018, Alabama enacted a statute authorizing execution by nitrogen hypoxia for inmates who elected that method within 30 days of their sentences becoming final or, for those whose sentences were already final before June 1, 2018, within 30 days of that date. Ala. Code §15– 18–82.1(b)(2). (Smith did not elect nitrogen hypoxia, so lethal injection remains the only method of execution authorized by state law in his case...
