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Issue 6 News Updates

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 16, 2008, that Kentucky's lethal injection law is constitutional. Attorneys for inmate Ralph Baze had argued that the three-drug lethal injection method used by most states could cause excrutiating pain and should be outlawed. The court ruled 7-2 that for a lethal injection method to be declared unconstitutional, it would have to create "a demonstrated risk of severe pain" and there would have to be alternatives that "significantly" reduced that risk. It said those standards had not been met in the Baze case. The ruling does not mean Baze will be excuted soon, because he still has other issues before the Kentucky Supreme Court.

• Several states postponed executions while waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection. Fewer than 50 death penalty sentences were expected to be carried out in 2007 because of the case-the fewest since 1996. After the Supreme Court issued its ruling in April 2008, execution calendars across the country began filling up again. Click here to read more.

• More Nobel Prize winners have been announced. They include former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations’ IPCC. To find out more about this year’s laureates, click here.

• For more issue related updates and web-only content, check out the new CE News Blog.