U.S. Supreme Court justices heard from attorneys today on both sides of Oklahoma’s lethal injection case.
The justices spent just more than an hour questioning the attorneys. Several justices asked questions to get to the bottom of how the sedative midazolam works and whether its use presents an unconstitutional risk of pain and suffering.
Some justices compared feeling potassium chloride to being burned alive from the inside and asking whether that was an acceptable constitutional risk.
Justice Samuel Alito, who earlier in the session talked about critics waging “guerilla warfare” against the death penalty, didn’t bite and asked the inmates’ attorney whether burning an anesthetized person alive was unconstitutional.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked the state’s attorney, Patrick Wyrick, what they do with a brief saying midazolam can’t induce coma-like unconsciousness.
Justice Stephen Breyer then added an expert’s testimony saying midazolam only works against minor stimuli, telling Wyrick, "Now, if we stop there, you’d lose, right?"
Wyrick told the justices midazolam is commonly used to induce anesthesia, but not to maintain it.
Several justices asked pointed questions of Wyrick. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she was disturbed that the state cited as fact in its brief things that weren’t supported by or were contradicted by the articles they were pulled from.
At one point, she told Wyrick, "nothing you say or read to me am I going to believe, frankly, until I see it with my own eyes."
The oral arguments happened exactly one year after Clayton Lockett’s botched execution
