WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has marked its sixth consecutive month with no executions of prisoners, its longest such period since 1982, but experts say the death penalty could make a swift return once questions about lethal injection are resolved.
The last execution took place on September 25, when 48-year-old Michael Richard was put to death for the rape and murder of a woman 20 years earlier. He was executed by lethal injection, the method most commonly used.
Just hours before Richards was pronounced dead by a Texas physician at 8:23 pm (20H23 GMT), the US Supreme Court had announced it would examine the legality of the lethal injection method.
The court is considering arguments from several death row inmates, led by a pair from Kentucky, that execution by lethal injection violates the US Constitution, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment."
Richards' case was rushed through after a Texas court refused to stay open to hear his appeal, angering those who oppose the death penalty in the state which has convicted the highest number of prisoners since 1976, but the ticker of those executed then stopped at 42 in 2007 -- the lowest rate in 13 years.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only one more execution is planned this year -- of a convict in Louisiana in July -- and that is expected to be postponed as well.
The Supreme Court is expected to announce its ruling by the end of June on the three-part injection method by which the first part sedates the inmate, the second paralyzes the muscles and the third stops the heart.
If the procedure goes according to plan, the inmate quickly loses consciousness and dies in a few minutes. But if the anaesthesia is not properly administered, the inmate can suffer immensely.
In the case of the December 2006 execution of convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz, he had to be given two lethal doses after a needle missed his vein and pierced tissue instead. Grimacing as he struggled to breathe, his execution took 34 minutes.
Following the incident, Florida imposed a temporary moratorium on executions.
When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the issue in January, the judges appeared split, with some seeming to lean toward the idea of returning the issue to lower courts for a deeper examination of alternative procedures.
Some experts have suggested the court is likely to make suggestions about the procedure, such as having trained personnel administer the injections.
If the court sets criteria which state jurisdictions must follow, the resumption of executions could happen quickly in some states.
"You have essentially a backlog... It's not that there will be more, it will be the executions that were scheduled to happen and did not take place," said Elisabeth Semel, law professor at University of California Berkeley.
"There may very well be what would certainly look like a bloodbath," said Semel, who has defended numerous death penalty convicts.
"On the positive side, because there is a very positive side to this, we haven't had an execution in six months and the world hasn't fallen off its axis. Life has not changed," she said.
"It's not so much a dramatic thing in California where we have executions on a very occasional basis, but in states like Texas, where executions are quite frequent, one could look around and say 'So? We can live without it.'"
Executions in the United States reached a peak of 98 in 1999, and lowered to 53 in 2006. Meanwhile, the number of those sentenced to death went from 317 in 1996 to 110 in 2007. And in December, the northeastern state of New Jersey became the first state in 40 years to abolish the death penalty.
Around two-thirds of Americans favor the death penalty, according to the DPIC, in a country where 3,260 detainees are presently on death row.
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