Executions in Texas, Alabama and other Southern states with large death rows are likely to resume shortly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday upholding Kentucky’s method of putting condemned prisoners to death.
But the fractured decision may actually slow executions elsewhere, legal experts said, as lawyers for death row inmates undertake fresh challenges based on its newly announced legal standards.
“The decision will have the effect of widening the divide between executing states and symbolic states, states that have the death penalty on the books but rarely carry out executions,” said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas.
George H. Kendall, a lawyer with Holland & Knight in New York who is an authority on capital litigation, said the effect of the Kentucky decision, Baze v. Rees, “is going to vary greatly.”
“I bet you by this time next week there will be execution dates in Texas and Alabama,” Mr. Kendall said. “But nothing is going to happen very quickly in California at all.”
Supporters of the death penalty welcomed the decision, though they suggested that it could have been more definitive.
“It’s true that they didn’t completely slam the door and lock it,” said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which advocates strong criminal penalties. “But I expect that the de facto moratorium will end this year, and in most states executions will resume.”
Read more>>> Source: The New York Times
