Opinion ID: 1697471
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Standards, Risk and the Eighth Amendment

Text: This Court first emphasizes that the Florida Supreme Court, in Lightbourne v. McCollum 969 So.2d 326 (Fla.2007), carefully reviewed the current DOC protocol for lethal injection and the extensive record created by the Circuit Court of Marion County during its evidentiary hearing on lethal injection. It concluded, [The petitioner] has failed to show that Florida's current lethal injection procedures, as actually administered though the DOC, are constitutionally defective. Id. at 353 (emphasis added). Since the Lightbourne decision, the United States Supreme Court issued Baze v. Rees, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 170 L.Ed.2d 420 (2008), which analyzed the lethal injection standards of the State of Kentucky Justice Roberts, writing the plurality opinion of the Court, began with the principal that capital punishment is constitutional. He noted that the Court has never invalidated a State's chosen procedure for carrying out a sentence of death as violative of the Eighth Amendment and then stated. It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying [a death sentence] out Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of executionno matter how humaneif only from the prospect of error in following the required procedure. It is clear, then, that the Constitution does not demand the avoidance of all risk of pain in carrying out executions. The Court stated that a method of execution does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment unless it creates a substantial risk of serious harm, or an objectively intolerable risk of harm. It also found that the conditions presenting the risk must be `sure or very likely to cause needless pain' and give rise to `sufficiently imminent dangers.' It concluded that [a] State with lethal injection protocol substantially similar to [Kentucky's] would not create a risk that meets this standard. Id. at 1531, 1537. The Defendant's arguments are essentially two-fold. He contends that Baze sets a different and higher Eighth Amendment standard than Lightbourne and that the Florida protocol do not meet the Baze standard because Florida's procedures are not substantially similar to those of Kentucky, thus exposing him to a substantial risk of harm. He also argues that the Florida protocol, as applied during training, demonstrate that a substantial risk of harm remains in the Florida process.