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USA: THE 2020–2021 U.S. SUPREME COURT TERM OPENED, DECLINING TO REVIEW MORE THAN 30 DEATH-PENALTY CASES
October 21, 2020: The 2020–2021 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 5 with the Court declining to review challenges to more than 30 death-penalty court decisions.
The only death-penalty decision that elicited comment from a member of the Court was the denial of Warren Henness’ petition for certiorari challenging Ohio’s execution protocol. Henness’ execution challenge had been denied by an Ohio federal district court, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had affirmed that decision.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a statement concerning the denial of certiorari “to address the Sixth Circuit’s novel and unsupported conclusion that pain is constitutionally tolerable so long as it is no worse than the suffering caused by a botched hanging.”
Justice Sotomayor explained that the fact that hanging was a traditional method of execution did not make it the constitutional standard against which other execution methods are judged. Rather, she wrote, the risk of suffering caused by a state’s execution method must be judged against the risks posed by readily available alternative methods of execution. (Source: DPIC)
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