The Supreme Court’s ideological divide returned Tuesday in a battle over the death penalty, an issue that has haunted the high court for decades. …
The Supreme Court’s ideological divide returned Tuesday in a battle over the death penalty, an issue that has haunted the high court for decades.
Just days after closing the books on a term in which liberals had much to celebrate, the justices split 5-4 along traditional lines in allowing the Trump administration to carry out the first federal execution in 17 years. Two more executions are scheduled for this week.
The court’s unsigned opinion, accompanied by dissents from the four liberal justices, came in the middle of the night. Within hours, convicted murderer and accused white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death with a lethal dose of pentobarbital, which the court noted has become « a mainstay of state executions. »
The decision prompted Associate Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to renew their doubts about whether the death penalty is constitutional. When the high court upheld lethal injection in 2015, also by a 5-4 vote, they said that question should be resolved.
« The federal government’s decision to resume executions renders the question of the death penalty’s constitutionality yet more pressing, » Breyer wrote. « Given the finality and seriousness of a death sentence, it is particularly important to ensure that the individuals sentenced to death are guilty, that they received full and fair procedures, and that they do not spend excessively long periods of time on death row.
