Botched Protocols
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the Supreme Court prepares to revisit the constitutionality of lethal injection, Dahlia Lithwick speaks with two experts about the controversial drugs being used for execution and whether the capital punishment system can be repaired.This week’s excerpts from the Supreme Court’s public sessions were provided by Oyez, a free law project at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, part of the Illinois Institute of Technology.More information on our show page. Please take a couple of minutes to Slate's podcast listener survey! Tell us about yourself and your favorite podcasts, so that Slate can serve you better. Go to slate.com/survey.This week’s episode is sponsored by The Great Courses. Save up to 80 percent off their most bestselling courses when you visit thegreatcourses.com/amicus. We’re also sponsored by HBO. Its new documentary series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” airs Sundays at 8 on HBO, starting this Sunday, Feb. 8.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Amicus is sponsored by The Great Courses, engaging audio and video lectures taught by top professors. |
| 0:06.2 | Courses like privacy, property, and free speech, law and the constitution in the 21st century. |
| 0:11.8 | Get 80% off the original price when you visit the greatcourses.com slash amicus. |
| 0:17.0 | And by The Jinks, the life and deaths of Robert Durst, the new documentary series from HBO. |
| 0:22.7 | Four decades, three murders, and one very rich man who refused to speak until now. |
| 0:27.7 | The Jinks airs Sundays at 8, only on HBO. |
| 0:33.6 | Hi, and welcome to Amicus, Slate's Supreme Court podcast. |
| 0:40.3 | I'm Dahlia Lithwick, Slate's Supreme Court correspondent. Just a few weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear glossop versus gross. A challenge to the way Oklahoma executes its capital defendants and a question under the Eighth Amendment of whether the lethal injection protocol used violates the Eighth Amendment |
| 0:55.5 | ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The decision to hear the case was especially confusing |
| 1:00.3 | because within a span of just a few days, the Supreme Court allowed one Oklahoma execution to go |
| 1:05.2 | forward, agreed to hear the case, and then halted three other executions. It's also a little |
| 1:10.8 | bit confusing because |
| 1:11.7 | just seven years ago in 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Bays v. Reese that Kentucky's |
| 1:18.0 | lethal injection protocol was not, in fact, cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment |
| 1:22.0 | and let other states know that this protocol was perfectly permissible. Today's podcast is not about the death |
| 1:28.8 | penalty. It's about lethal injection in the states that allow for the death penalty and how the |
| 1:34.4 | protocol has changed in the eight years since the Supreme Court last looked at it. It's a very |
| 1:39.0 | confusing issue, and we've asked to join us two people who think a lot about lethal injection. |
| 1:44.8 | Joining us today are Professor Deborah Deno, who teaches at Fordham University Law School |
| 1:48.9 | and is an expert on the death penalty, and Dr. Joel B. Zivitt, who practices anesthesiology |
| 1:54.5 | and intensive care medicine, and also is on the faculty at Emory University Hospital. |
| 1:59.5 | We're going to first turn to Dr. Joel B. Zivitt. |
... |
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