Paxton: Lethal Injection Forever

Ken Paxton (Photo by John Anderson)

Never put it past Texas to throw its support behind state killings. Attorney General Ken Paxton joined 15 other states' attorneys general on Monday to file a joint amicus brief in support of the state of Missouri in its lethal injection protocol case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In March, SCOTUS stayed Russell Bucklew's execution for fear that the deadly injection would cause him to asphyxiate on his own blood. Bucklew has requested an alternative execution method – specifically lethal gas instead of pentobarbital – which he argues is his Eighth Amendment right. The 16-page brief argues that Bucklew's challenge asks SCOTUS to "modify its precedents and alter" its Eighth Amendment rule for "determining when a constitutional violation exists in the first place." Additionally, it notes that the number of carried out lethal injections continues to decline due to "efforts by death-penalty opponents to limit the supply of execution drugs," and that existing protocols across the U.S. are valid. The brief concludes that Eighth Amendment rights shouldn't "force States" to find alternative methods of execution that "differ for every individual circumstance." In an email statement, Paxton wrote, "If prisoners are allowed to bring claims challenging methods of execution without satisfying the Supreme Court's settled requirement to identify an alternative, the states would undoubtedly face a flood of lengthy and costly lawsuits resulting in indefinite delays of executions."