National

Stayed Executions Revive Lethal Injection Debate

By Nina Totenberg, Robert Siegel

Published October 31, 2007 at 1:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

The Supreme Court has been delaying executions that involve a drug combination that's used in many state lethal-injection executions.

The justices plan to consider in a case later this term whether these particular drugs cause the prisoner so much pain that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned by the Constitution.

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Nina Totenberg

Nina Totenberg is NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition.

Robert Siegel

Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.