Opinion ID: 1912613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Early U.S. Supreme Court Decisions on Electrocution

Text: In 1890, in In re Kemmler, [101] the U.S. Supreme Court decided the State of New York could proceed with the first execution by electrocution. New York had carried out death sentences by hanging until the governor recommended in 1886 that the Legislature find a less barbarous method. [102] Commercially available electricity was new, and states had not used it for an execution. [103] But after a legislative commission reported in 1888 that electrocution was the most humane and practical method of execution known to modern science, [104] the state enacted electrocution as its mode of execution. William Kemmler, the first prisoner scheduled to die by electrocution, challenged the method as cruel and unusual punishment. He alleged electrocution violated his right to due process under both the state and federal Constitutions. [105] The trial court concluded that Kemmler had failed to overcome the statute's presumption of constitutionality. It determined that he failed to show `beyond doubt' that `a force of electricity [sufficient] to kill any human subject with celerity and certainty, when scientifically applied, cannot be generated.' [106] The New York Court of Appeals affirmed. It concluded that the statute's presumption of constitutionality could not be overcome by evidence outside the statute, other than what the court could judicially notice. [107] It therefore held that the mode ... might be said to be unusual because it was new, but that it could not be assumed to be cruel in the light of that common knowledge which has stamped certain punishments as such. [108] But the Court of Appeals agreed the evidence showed that 1.a current sufficient to produce instantaneous, and therefore painless, death could be applied. [109] On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court said that cruel and unusual punishment could not be defined with precision. It stated, however, that certain types of punishment clearly fell within the Eighth Amendment's prohibition: 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 [is] something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life. [110] Over the last 118 years, the In re Kemmler standard has remained the baseline criterion under the Eighth Amendment for evaluating a method of execution. The Court did not, however, apply this standard in In re Kemmler to New York's newly enacted method, nor did it independently review the evidence regarding electrocution. Instead, it held that the 8th Amendment's protections were not applicable to state actions through the 14th Amendment: The decision of the state courts sustaining the validity of [electrocution] under the state constitution is not re[e]xaminable here.... [111] The Court limited the 14th Amendment's protections to the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of life; liberty, or property, and equal protection to all under like circumstances. [112] Under that standard, it concluded the state's new execution method did not violate the prisoner's federal due process rights. [113] Therefore, the Court did not decide the case under the Eighth Amendment, and there was scant evidence about electrocution in 1890. Yet, lower courts, including this court, have traveled the well-worn path of summarily rejecting claims that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have typically [relied] on the strength of th[e] Court's opinion in In re Kemmler.  [114] In Malloy v. South Carolina, [115] a 1915 case, the Court held that South Carolina's statutory change from hanging to electrocution did not constitute ex post facto punishment. It concluded that the penalty for murderdeathhad not been increased. Although the Eighth Amendment was not at issue, the Court judicially noticed that 11 other states, including Nebraska, had adopted electrocution after New York did. [T]his result is the consequent of a well-grounded belief that electrocution is less painful and more humane than hanging. [116] Thus, the Court's reasoning, in part, relied on its factual assumption that electrocution did not increase a condemned prisoner's punishment because electrocution was more humane than hanging. As in In re Kemmler, the Court in Malloy did not review any evidence underlying that assumption. Instead, it cited its approval of electrocution in In re Kemmler and the approval of Massachusetts and New Jersey state courts. Yet, the Massachusetts Supreme Court assumedwithout reviewing evidence regarding the physiological effect of electrocution on the human bodythat electrocution is an instantaneous and painless method of inflicting death. [117] The New Jersey court declined to assume electrocution was unconstitutional, and the opinion shows that no evidence was presented on the issue. [118] In Francis v. Resweber , [119] a 1946 case challenging electrocution, eight justices assumed without deciding that a violation of the 8th Amendment would violate a prisoner's due process rights under the 14th Amendment. The issue was whether Louisiana could conduct a second electrocution after the prisoner's first electrocution failed to result in deathnot whether electrocution was inherently cruel or unusual. The four-justice plurality concluded: The cruelty against which the Constitution protects a convicted man is cruelty inherent in the method of punishment, not the necessary suffering involved in any method employed to extinguish life humanely. [120] The prisoner's psychological hardship in facing a second attempt to electrocute him was the result of an unfortunate accident. It did not result in making his subsequent execution any more cruel in the constitutional sense than any other execution. [121] The four-justice dissent concluded that electrocution is not cruel and unusual punishment when painless and instantaneous: Electrocution has been approved only in a form that eliminates suffering. [122] Thus, in Resweber, both the plurality and the dissent concluded that electrocution could be constitutional. However, both the plurality and the dissent again relied on In re Kemmler, in which the Court had refused to apply the Eighth Amendment lend had deferred to the New York Court of Appeals' decision. Resweber left intact the presumption that when properly carried out, electrocution is an instantaneous and painless method of inflicting death. Our review of these early cases illustrates that the U.S. Supreme Court's case law on electrocution relies on unexamined factual assumptions about an electric current's physiological effects, on a human. This obvious omission in the Court's jurisprudence results from three factors: (1) the Court's limited knowledge about an electrocution's effect on the human body, (2) the states' desire to find a more humane method of execution than hanging, and (3) the Court's view, when electrocution was first introduced, that the Eighth Amendment was not intended as a restraint on state legislatures' determinations of punishment. But that view has changed. The Supreme Court has specifically held that the Eighth Amendment is a restraint on legislative power to impose punishment. [123] And it has held the 8th Amendment applies to the states through the 14th Amendment. [124] Yet since deciding Resweber in 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed the constitutionality of any method of execution, [125] and only indirectly in that case. We agree with Justice Souter that in light of modern knowledge about electrocution, the Court's decisions do not constitute a dispositive response to the issue. [126]