Word: lethalness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of Kentucky lawsuits challenging the lethal three-drug cocktail used in most U.S. executions. The gist of the cases is that the drug combination is unnecessarily complicated, using three chemicals when one would do, and that when this procedure is administered by undertrained prison officials, there's an unconstitutional risk that something will go wrong. Instead of going to a quiet death, an inmate could experience terrifying paralysis followed by excruciating pain...
...comparison, lethal injection sounds more scientific--almost therapeutic--but its history is as improvised as that supermarket sponge. In 1977 an Oklahoma lawmaker sketched the protocol on a notepad with the help of a medical examiner. More research has gone into the proper way to brush your teeth. But the idea caught on, and now, years later, more than half the states have adopted some version of the Oklahoma cocktail. Judges in courts across the country are scratching their head over the odd concoction, and the Supreme Court has effectively halted all executions to untangle a mess of belated questions...
...number of executions has also dropped dramatically from its modern peak in 1999. The 42 executions in 2007 were the fewest in 13 years. A number of states had called formal or informal moratoriums even before the Supreme Court effectively halted executions nationwide pending its review of lethal injection...
...Supreme Court is part of this slow-motion shutdown of the death-penalty machine. In recent years the court has banned executions of mentally retarded inmates and of prisoners who committed their crimes as minors. The mere fact that the court is hearing the lethal-injection cases is historic because the institution has always been reluctant to inquire into the business end of the death penalty...
...Although their capabilities have been diminished," Petraeus said of AQI, "you might liken them to a fighter who's been dropped to the canvas once or twice. That fighter keeps coming back off the canvas, has a very lethal right hand, and can land very tough blows...