Oklahoma Death Penalty Case

The 8th amendment states, “ Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Which brings me to the case of Thompson vs. Oklahoma. The debate is on whether or not capital punishment should be given to minors. On one hand, some may argue that Thompson should have been charged with capital punishment because “his acts were heinous and cruel” (Pearson Prentice Hall: n.d.). On the other hand, others such as Oklahoma argue that it is a violation of the 8th amendment under “cruel and unusual punishment.” This creates the argument of Thompson vs. Oklahoma.

Capital punishment has been a controversial issue that still exists in America today. Capital punishment is a law passed by the government to punish any individual that has been convicted of committed a heinous crime. The death penalty has been a method used throughout history as punishment for criminals. The punishment also known as the death penalty is a scheduled execution, which would be done with lethal injection. The reason why this punishment is chosen is because when crimes are committed that shock the conscience, the immediate emotional reaction is to retaliate with severe punishment (Schnurbush 2016). The death penalty is debated when it is brought up, opinions vary from one group of people to another, one side says the execution is murder, and the other saying that it is justice being done. Each side presents valid arguments to why people should be for it or against it; people’s opinions are formed by personal beliefs.

First, the death penalty has its ups and downs because they could kill again if the criminal is released or if he or she escapes prison. There have been cases where the criminal serves his/her time in prison, then gets released and then kills again. They usually do this for two reasons: committing crime is all they are accustom to or they never learned their lesson while behind bars. There have also been times where people have escaped prison and the only way they know they’ll get away is by killing anyone that gets in their way. Majority of the public believes that if the criminal gets out and kills again, it’s the justice systems fault because it’s their job to keep us safe.

Since 2012, the use of lethal injection has been legal in 31 states, to contaminate a convict. 1,423 people innocent and guilty have died from the death penalty since 1972. I strongly believe that the death penalty is unconstitutional being that it violates the Eighth Amendment, irreversible, and executes a large amount of hypocrisy.

This time, the Supreme Court granted the writ of certiorari, but held that Oklahoma’s use of midazolam as the initial drug in the execution protocol, the same drug used in Clayton Lockett’s execution, did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented, and Breyer’s strong 41 page dissent seemed to invite a facial challenge to the death penalty.

Throughout mankind has been using the death penalty as a form of punishment. Many people argue with this type of punishment because they believe in an eye for an eye. Many people that it is okay to murder a human being due to them having killed an individual over time. There have been many cases that have proven that they death penalty violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, being very expensive, and innocent lives are convicted.

In April 29, 2014, a man by the name of Clayton Lockett was executed in Oklahoma using a three-drug lethal injection. Although the Clayton did die of the injection, his death didn't come until forty minutes after his injections. A proper procedure was to be done, so that Clayton and any other man or woman given lethal injection would go to sleep with the first injection, the kept asleep with the second, and finally killed with the last injection. In Clayton’s case, he awoke after the injection of the drugs that we suppose to render him unconscious. After his death Charles Warner and around 20 other inmates began to sue multiple state officials and stated that the lethal injection was in violation of the 8th amendment, which

Rees, the challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection been used in many states as form capital punishment for many decades. In this case the court determines whether the use of lethal injection is unconstitutional because the procedure causes cruel and unusual punishment which is prohibited by Eight Amendment of the U.S Constitution. Baze argued that lethal injection procedure violates his Eight Amendment right because it is likely to cause him substantial pain and suffering. Baze argument continues until it made his way to State Court, at this time Kentucky Supreme Court made a decision rejection Baze case. The court ruled that the state lethal injection procedure did not violate constitutional right and did not present substantial risk of pain during execution which does not violates Eight Amendment. The case went all the way to Supreme Court, but the court also ruled that Kentucky's three-drug protocol for carrying out lethal injections does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Seven Justices wrote opinions in the case, indicating that the Court is far from a consensus about how to resolve additional challenges that are likely to

Historically, executions have been around for a long time. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. but didn’t make an appearance in the United States until 1608 (Part 1, n.d.). Death penalty is seen as a form of accountability for someone’s action. Most easily understood when you take a life, you lose your life--an eye for an eye. Nonetheless, over time people have started humanizing the situation and creating controversy. The Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as permitting the death penalty, until the early 1960s, when it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore arguing it as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment (Part

I, myself, don’t support the death penalty and I believe it’s unethical. There has have been many cases where someone has been sentenced to death row and then after they had already been executed, officials found out that they had the wrong person in custody, and once this is done it can’t be undone. Run on sentence, but it is an important point to make. Add an article citation here that has an example of this. There is also the fighting fire with fire argument, that killing someone for killing someone else doesn’t solve anything or make it justified. It doesn’t seem to make sense to say that “Because you killed someone, we’re going to get back at you by killing you.” This is called “retributive justice” Also, if the death penalty wasn’t enacted, these criminals could end up spending the rest of their lives in prison with the guilt and this could be a more harshharsher punishment than just being put to death. In some of the cases, it is family members or friends that

Capital punishment remains, as it has always been, controversial and heavily debated on both philosophical (moral) grounds as well as on a strictly financial basis. Both sides, however, seem to be able to crunch the

Inmates in Oklahoma State Penitentiary, located in McAlester, Oklahoma, sued state officials after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014 led to Lockett laying in agonizing pain for 40 minutes after receiving the lethal injection cocktail, waiting for his heart attack to kill him (Konrad, Web). Richard E. Glossip and the other death row inmates petition the Court, believing that the use of midazolam as the initial drug of execution violated the Eight Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment (S. Ct, p.1). The Supreme Court of the United States of America denied the motion in a 5-4 ruling, stating prisoners “failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the

Several states have turned to the sedative midazolam after not being able to obtain sodium thiopental and pentobarbital as the initial drug used to place inmates in an unconscious state” (Hudson 1). Since sodium thiopental and pentobarbital are no longer allowed in use, states have turned to midazolam. Midazolam ultimately does the same job, but not as effectively. The lack of sodium thiopental and pentobarbital leaves midazolam as the alternative, even though it is not as powerful to create and unconscious like- state (Hudson 2). The unconscious like- state is a necessity to perform the death penalty without going against the Eighth Amendment, due to inflicting pain. Clayton Lockett is an example of someone who was sentenced to death, given midazolam, and suffered during execution. In his procedure, he was only administered 100 milligrams of midazolam, which was not enough (Hudson 2). “... Lockett awoke during the execution process and, by several accounts, suffered a very painful death” (Hudson 2). Lockett’s experience clearly goes against the Eighth Amendment, because “cruel and unusual

In 2014, convicted killer Joseph R. Wood III was executed by lethal injection. The execution took nearly two hours in which Woods reportedly “gasped and struggled to breath.” Inmates at an Oklahoma prison believed that the drug was unconstitutional because it can be associated with cruel and unusual punishment. The prisoners took the issue to federal court. On June 29, 2015 the Supreme Court ruled against three death row inmates in Oklahoma who wanted to remove the specific execution drug which could risk the cause of excruciating pain. This case can be directly linked to the 8th Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment. 5 out of the 9 judges believed that the drug did work in knocking the guilty unconscious in the first stages of the

Another case that was used was Dennis McGuire who was executed in Ohio last year. The petitioners used multiple similar cases where midazolam was used which helped to back up their main argument that midazolam does in fact violate the Eighth Amendment because it causes unusual pain and suffering to the prisoners. Oklahoma was forced to use midazolam because after the Blaze v. Rees case, anti-death penalty advocates forced and pressured companies that supplied sodium thiopental and pentobarbital to no longer supply the executions. As a result, several questions from the petitioners were brought to the case; 1) “is it constitutionally permissible for a state to carry out an execution using a three-drug protocol where is scientific proof that the first drug has no pain relieving properties and cannot reliably produce a deep unconsciousness” (Skelton), 2) does the case of Blaze v. Rees still stand if different drugs are being used, and 3) “ must a prisoner establish the availability of an alternative drug formula even if the state’s lethal-injection protocol, as properly administered, will violate the Eighth Amendment”