Lethal Injection Update

Lethal Injection Update

The Baltimore Sun has an editorial, "O'Malley's call."

Mr. Ehrlich doesn't have enough time left in office to properly respond to the court's ruling. It should be Mr. O'Malley's call, and the new governor would have several ways he could proceed when the General Assembly convenes in January. He could submit the current execution protocols to the legislature and let the expected debate on the merits of the death penalty unfold.

But we expect Mr. O'Malley to give this serious issue a more thorough reexamination. At the very least this legislative session, he should push for reform of the current method of lethal injection to avoid the inhumane and painful procedure now used by the state and increasingly under attack across the country.

The Los Angeles Times has an editorial, "Dead wrong: It's killing that's cruel and unusual."

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state death penalty laws then on the books. In a much-quoted opinion, Justice Potter Stewart said that capital punishment was imposed "wantonly and freakishly," adding that "these death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual." The same is true, we believe, of the selective, even capricious imposition of the death penalty at the present time, whether or not the chemical cocktail administered to a prisoner is mixed in a way that minimizes pain. Tinkering with the machinery of lethal injection is only the beginning.