Attack of the Misleading Headline

Several headlines dealing with the Supreme Court's decision in Nelson v. Campbell that I've heard and read are doing a great disservice to the public. Take this one in today's USA Today: "Death-row inmate allowed to appeal execution method." That makes it sound as if soon-to-be executed prisoners now have the right to challenge the electric chair, lethal injection, or whatever method of death will be visited upon them by the state. That is emphatically not what the Supremes said.

The condemned in this case is facing lethal injection. He has exhausted the challenges to his conviction and sentence, and indeed offered no resistance to the setting of an executing date. What he did challenge was the prison's decision to use a "cut down" to gain access to his drug-ravaged veins. They proposed to do this with only local anesthesia and without a physician. The prisoner filed suit to stop this as cruel and unusual punishment. Medical experts apparently agree (one testified that the only reason the prison would choose that procedure is because it is particularly painful) and the condemned offered several alternatives. In other words, he was not seeking, and the Court did not grant, to stop his execution.

But don't take my word for it, read the decision for yourself.