Episcopal Peace Fellowship hopes the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 hearing on Oklahoma’s use of Midazolam will lead to a ban of the death cocktail on constitutional grounds.
Oklahoma death row prisoners Richard Glossip, John Grant, Benjamin Cole and Charles Warren brought their case, Glossip v. Cross, to the Supreme Court last year.
“When I read the cruel and pompous questions by the four male Supreme Court justices to defense attorney Robin Konrad, I felt we were in a North Korea courtroom — not the United States,” said the Rev. Allison Sandlin Liles, EPF’s executive director.
“Justice Samuel Alito said abolitionists caused this problem by waging a ‘guerilla war against the death penalty,’” Liles said in response to a report on SCOTUSblog. “Justice Anthony Kennedy — viewed as a crucial fifth vote — expressed frustration with the ‘resistance movement’ causing more work for the court.
“Sister Helen Prejean, a longtime EPF friend, called out the court for allowing a ‘blanket medical experimentation with killing people. … There’s no empirical, scientific way for them to find a humane way of killing,’” Liles said, quoting from a news report on Glossip v. Cross.
Image: Bob Kinney of Episcopal Peace Fellowship protests with Sister Helen Prejean at the Texas State Capitol on Sept. 10, 2014.
