JUSTICE GORSUCH’S FIRST BIG VOTE | Arkansas Execution First In More Than A Decade
April 21, 2017
THE FIRST PLUNGE IN THE DEEP END
|In his first major action on the Supreme Court, JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH cast the deciding vote to let Arkansas begin executing a group of death-row inmates. Late last night, Arkansas carried out the state’s first execution in more than a decade. LEDELL LEE was pronounced dead at 11:56 PM, four minutes before his death warrant was due to expire. It was a dramatic end to a chaotic week of appeals and legal wrangling around the state’s aggressive execution timeline for several death row inmates.
AIN'T OVER YET
|DON'T DO THE SAME DRUGS NO MORE
|“A drugmaker asked Arkansas officials not to purchase its products for executions months before the state accepted a ‘donation’ of potassium chloride as one of three drugs to use in lethal injections, according to letters obtained by The Associated Press.”
YOU DON'T WANT NO PROBLEM
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times notes that the legal saga in Arkansas illustrates growing problems with the death penalty. He writes, “The practical and legal difficulties that have frustrated Arkansas’s plan to execute eight prisoners in 10 days are a vivid example of the troubled state of the death penalty.”
ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE
|Michael Wines with The New York Times previews a Wisconsin case headed to the Supreme Court that could be a “pivotal moment” for Democrats and offer greater clarity around the issue of gerrymandering in this country.
HATE THAT YOU KNOW ME SO WELL
|“JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR was right when she said that ‘no one is asking the church to change its beliefs.’” That’s Noah Feldman for Bloomberg reflecting on the Trinity Lutheran case that came before the justices earlier this week. He writes, “If KENNEDY wants to follow the original meaning of the free exercise clause, he’ll notice that there’s no coercion of any kind in this case. No one is being stopped from doing anything on the basis of religion. That means the free exercise of religion isn’t being violated in a funding case like this one. Careful attention to this proposition will save the free exercise clause from being turned into an equal protection clause for religion. And that can help preserve the separation of church and state.”