Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 123

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

27 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

heightened  pleading  requirements.”    547  U. S.,  at  582. 
But that only confirms that the Court in Hill did not view 
the availability of an alternative means of execution as an 
element  of  an  Eighth  Amendment  claim:  If  it  had,  then
requiring  the  plaintiff  to  plead  this  element  would  not 
have  meant  imposing  a  heightened  standard  at  all,  but 
rather  would  have  been  entirely  consistent  with  “tradi­
tional pleading requirements.”  Ibid.; see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 
556  U. S.  662,  678  (2009).    The  Baze  plurality  opinion
should not be understood to have so carelessly tossed aside 
Hill’s underlying premise less than two years later. 

C 
  In reengineering Baze to support its newfound rule, the
Court appears to rely on a flawed syllogism.  If the death 
penalty  is  constitutional,  the  Court  reasons,  then  there 
must be a means of accomplishing it, and thus some avail­
able method of execution must be constitutional.  See ante, 
at 4, 15–16.  But even accepting that the death penalty is,
in  the  abstract,  consistent  with  evolving  standards  of
decency,  but  see  ante,  p.  ___  (BREYER,  J.,  dissenting),  the
Court’s conclusion does not follow.  The constitutionality of
the death penalty may inform our conception of the degree
of pain that would render a particular method of imposing
it  unconstitutional.  See  Baze,  553  U. S.,  at  47  (plurality 
opinion)  (because  “[s]ome  risk  of  pain  is  inherent  in  any 
method  of  execution,”  “[i]t  is  clear  . . .  the  Constitution
does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain”).  But a 
method  of  execution  that  is  “barbarous,”  Rhodes,  452 
U. S.,  at  345,  or  “involve[s]  torture  or  a  lingering  death,” 
Kemmler,  136  U. S.,  at  447,  does  not  become  less  so  just
because  it  is  the  only  method  currently  available  to  a
State.  If  all  available  means  of  conducting  an  execution
constitute cruel and unusual punishment, then conducting
the execution will constitute cruel and usual punishment. 
Nothing compels a State to perform an execution.  It does