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The Baze argument (finally) and the long litigation path to Baze

By Douglas Berman

About 12 hours from the time I am writing this post, the Supreme Court will finally hear oral arguments in Baze v. Rees, the case from Kentucky exploring the constitutionality of that state’s lethal injection protocols.  I say “finally” because, as a result of its September cert. grant and subsequent stay rulings, the Court has with Baze already created the longest execution moratorium in the US for more than a quarter century.  And since it is unlikely that we will get any ruling in Baze for months, we many not see an end to this moratorium for a long time.

Fortunately, there is plenty to read to gear up for the argument and then await a ruling: SCOTUSwiki has this extended review of the case basics, as well as links to various additional coverage; How Appealing has collected lots of the latest major media coverage in posts here and here and hereat this link.  And all my Baze coverage is assembled in this category archive.

As regular readers know, I have been following lethal injection litigation closely since the start of this blog and well before the Baze grant. I believe my first major post on the topic was this post, titled “The legal attack on lethal injection,” from April 2005.  Notably, that post discussed the trial court hearing in the very case that is to be argued tomorrow before the Justices.  In the same spirit, here is an abridged blog/legal history with a few milestones (and posts) on the topic before SCOTUS finally took up Baze:

And then finally, come September 2007, SCOTUS to review lethal injection protocols with Kentucky case.