Clarence Thomas

“ Under the competing risk standards advanced by the plurality opinion and the dissent, for example, the difference between a lethal injection procedure that satisfies the Eighth Amendment and one that does not may well come down to one's judgment with respect to something as hairsplitting as whether an eyelash stroke is necessary to ensure that the inmate is unconscious, or whether instead other measures have already provided sufficient assurance of unconsciousness. ”

“ Weems, supra, at 390 (White, J., dissenting) (" [I] t may not be doubted, and indeed is not questioned by any one, that the cruel punishments against which the bill of rights provided were the atrocious, sanguinary and inhuman punishments which had been inflicted in the past upon the persons of criminals") . That view has permeated our method-of-execution cases. Thrice the Court has considered a challenge to a modern method of execution, and thrice it has rejected the challenge, each time emphasizing that the Eighth Amendment is aimed at methods of execution purposely designed to inflict pain. ”

“ Reserved for offenders whose crimes were thought to pose an especially grave threat to the social order—such as slaves who killed their masters and women who killed their husbands—burning a person alive was so dreadful a punishment that sheriffs sometimes hanged the offender first "as an act of charity." ”

“ Similarly, when the Court in In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 446 (1890) , unanimously rejected a challenge to electrocution, it interpreted the Eighth Amendment to prohibit punishments that "were manifestly cruel and unusual, as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, or the like":
"Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life." ”

“ We have neither the authority nor the expertise to micromanage the States' administration of the death penalty in this manner. There is simply no reason to believe that "unelected" judges without scientific, medical, or penological training are any better suited to resolve the delicate issues surrounding the administration of the death penalty than are state administrative personnel specifically charged with the task. ”

“ The fact that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt consummation of the sentence cannot, it seems to us, add an element of cruelty to a subsequent execution. There is no purpose to inflict unnecessary pain nor any unnecessary pain involved in the proposed execution. ”

“ Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1879) , the Court rejected the contention that death by firing squad was cruel and unusual. In so doing, it reviewed the various [p. 100] modes of execution catalogued by Blackstone, repeating his observation that "in very atrocious crimes other circumstances of terror, pain, or disgrace were sometimes superadded." Id., at 135. The Court found it "safe to affirm that punishments of torture, such as those mentioned by [Blackstone] , and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden by [the Eighth Amendment] ." ”

“ Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947) , the Court rejected the petitioner's contention that the Eighth Amendment prohibited Louisiana from subjecting him to a second attempt at electrocution, the first attempt having failed when " [t] he executioner threw the switch but, presumably because of some mechanical difficulty, death did not result." ”

“ Workman v. Bredesen, 486 F.3d 896, 907 (2007) . But " [t] he risk of negligence in implementing a death-penalty procedure...does not establish a cognizable Eighth Amendment claim." Id., at 907–908. Because Kentucky's lethal injection protocol is designed to eliminate pain rather than to inflict it, petitioners' challenge must fail. I accordingly concur in the Court's judgment affirming the decision below.
Notes
↑ . As gruesome as these methods of execution were, they were not the worst punishments the Framers would have been acquainted with. ”