ABSTRACT
The 'rub' regarding lethal injection is that the prisoner may not always be asleep from the first drug when the second and third drugs painfully kill the prisoner by suffocation and cardiac arrest. A recent Supreme Court decision on the issue has held that the risk of pain to the prisoner does not rise to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation and refused to interfere with the states and how they grapple with this problem (Baze v. Rees, 2008). But, the fact that an issue may not be a violation of the Constitution does not mean that it is no longer an issue, only that it is not an issue that will cause the federal courts to mandate specific action by the states. This paper will address the issue of methods of capital punishment in general, and the current practice oflethal injection in particular, including the recent ruling of the Supreme Court.
