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Bucklew v. Precythe

Bucklew v. Precythe
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 6, 2018
Decided April 1, 2019
Full case nameRussell Bucklew v. Anne L. Precythe, Director, Missouri Department of Corrections, et al.
Docket no.17-8151
Citations587 U.S. 119 (more)
139 S. Ct. 1112; 203 L. Ed. 2d 521
ArgumentOral argument
Case history
Prior
  • Conviction and death sentence affirmed, State v. Bucklew, 973 S.W.2d 83 (Mo. 1998); post-conviction relief denied, Bucklew v. State, 38 S.W.3d 395 (Mo. 2001); denial of habeas corpus petition affirmed; Bucklew v. Luebbers, 436 F.3d 1010 (8th Cir. 2006)
  • Habeas petition denied, Bucklew v. Lombardi, No. 4:14-cv-08000 (W.D. Mo. May 19, 2014); reversed and remanded, 783 F.3d 1120 (8th Cir. 2015); summary judgment granted, No. 4:14-cv-08000 (W.D. Mo. June 15, 2017); affirmed, Bucklew v. Precythe, 883 F.3d 1087 (8th Cir. 2018); cert. granted, 138 S. Ct. 1706 (2018)
Holding
Baze v. Rees[1] and Glossip v. Gross[2] govern all Eighth Amendment challenges alleging that a method of execution inflicts unconstitutionally cruel pain. The specific as-applied challenge to the Eighth Amendment (that lethal injection would cause extreme pain due to a rare medical condition) did not meet these previous tests.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
MajorityGorsuch, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh
ConcurrenceThomas
ConcurrenceKavanaugh
DissentBreyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan (all but Part III)
DissentSotomayor
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. VIII

Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U.S. 119 (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the standards for challenging methods of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that when a convict sentenced to death challenges the State's method of execution due to claims of excessive pain, the convict must show that other alternative methods of execution exist and clearly demonstrate they would cause less pain than the state-determined one.[3][4][5] The Court's opinion emphasized the precedential force of its prior decisions in Baze v. Rees[1] and Glossip v. Gross.[2]

  1. ^ a b Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008).
  2. ^ a b Glossip v. Gross, No. 14-7955, 576 U.S. ___ (2015).
  3. ^ Bucklew v. Precythe, No. 17-8151, 587 U.S. ___ (2019).
  4. ^ Liptak, Adam (April 1, 2019). "Rancor and Raw Emotion Surface in Supreme Court Death Penalty Ruling". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  5. ^ Barnes, Robert (April 1, 2019). "Divided Supreme Court rules against death-row inmate with rare condition". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 20, 2020. Retrieved August 20, 2020.

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