On death row

After a seven-month hiatus, state executions are likely to resume nationwide after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 Wednesday to reject a challenge to the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection method, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill.

The case decided Wednesday did not challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty in general or even lethal injection. Rather, two Kentucky death row inmates contended their executions could be carried out more humanely.

The argument was that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain.

But the court found that the inmates "have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration ... constitute(s) cruel and unusual punishment," Chief Justice John Roberts ruled.

Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney Ray Larson, who prosecuted plaintiff Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. in 1992, had it about right.

Kentucky hasn't ordered anyone eviscerated or burned alive, after all. "Fact of the matter is," Mr. Larson said Wednesday, "this lethal injection process is about as far from cruel and unusual as anything you can imagine. This is just another one of those things the anti-death penalty gang is throwing against the wall to see what sticks."

The strongest argument against the death penalty is plain old mistaken identity. If the convicts in question wish to contend "somebody else did it," let them so argue -- let legions of lawyers seek a shred of evidence. If these lawyers wish to go state-by-state and lobby the legislatures to abandon the death penalty, let them do so.

But that such men should die of old age with smirks on their faces while state authorities are set on an endless goose chase seeking the "perfect painless" method of execution is absurd.

Yes, the most humane method available should be used. But surely 16 years does not constitute a "rush to judgment."