Court Extends Appeals for Death Row Inmates

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued two rulings that make it easier for death row inmates to file additional appeals to avoid execution, extending the appeals process for many of the 3,300 inmates on death row and delaying justice for the families of their victims.

In a unanimous ruling, the Court ruled that Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill, who was convicted of killing a police officer, could challenge the state's lethal injection execution method as too painful and therefore cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling opens the door for other condemned inmates to make last-minute challenges to the lethal injection form of execution.

In a 5-3 ruling, the Court made it easier for death row inmates to challenge their convictions with new evidence, such as DNA testing. The court said Tennessee death-row inmate Paul Gregory House can use DNA evidence to try to overturn his conviction for the 1985 murder of a neighbor.

Lethal Injection Challenge

Florida uses a combination of three drugs in its execution by lethal injection process. The first is a painkiller, followed by a drug that paralyzes the inmate and a final drug that causes a heart attack. Controversy arose with the process after a 2005 study published in a medical journal questioned if the painkiller administered at the start of an execution wears off before the prisoner dies.

The Supreme Court did not rule that lethal injections were unconstitutional, but that the issue could be raised in future challenges. The process is used by the federal government and 37 of 38 states that have the death penalty.

Pro-death-penalty proponents expect that the ruling will not stop states from using lethal injections, but may change their methods. Executions in several states were halted after Hill received his original stay as a result of challenging lethal injection.

The issue is whether or not any painful form of execution is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment. Most states have adopted lethal injection because it is more humane that hanging, gas chambers, electric chairs and firing squads.

Easier to Introduce New Evidence

In the second case, Paul Gregory House was convicted of the rape and murder of his neighbor's wife after he lured her away from her home by telling her that her husband had been injured in a auto crash.

New DNA evidence showed that semen on the victim's clothes came from her husband, not House. Without the benefit of DNA evidence at the trial the jury concluded the semen belonged to House. The 5-3 court ruling said House had the right to introduce the new evidence in order to try to show his "actual innocence" in a new trial.

In a strong dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Kennedy ignored evidence in the case and a trial judge's determination that House and several of his witnesses were unreliable.

"Witnesses do not testify in our courtroom, and it is not our role to make credibility findings and construct theories of the possible ways in which Mrs. Muncey's blood could have been spattered and wiped on House's jeans," Roberts wrote.

See Also:
Justices OK Lethal Injection Challenges
Court Opens Door to Lethal Injection Challenges
Justices Issue Key Death Penalty Rulings
House v. Bell
Hill v. McDonough

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