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Article: Lethal injection: Supreme Court should make already cruel punishment less cruel
- Article from:
- Chicago Defender
- Article date:
- February 20, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Real Times, Inc. Feb 20-Feb 26, 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to an Alabama prisoner while it determines whether the procedure of lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling came a month after the hearing of arguments in a case filed in Kentucky on behalf of death row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling that since September has put a de facto moratorium on all executions by lethal injection.
The case harkens back to 2006 when Clarence Edward Hill, an African American convicted of murdering a police officer in Pensacola. Fla., challenged Florida's lethal injection procedure.
On death row from 1983 until 2006, Hill was ...