JURIST - Paper Chase: Georgia schedules execution after high court lethal injection ruling

[JURIST] A Georgia court has scheduled the execution [press release] of a convicted killer after the US Supreme Court last week upheld Kentucky's lethal injection protocol [JURIST report], ending a de facto national moratorium on the death penalty. William Earl Lynd, who was convicted of the 1988 murder of his girlfriend, is scheduled to be executed during on May 6, according to Wednesday media reports. If the execution takes place as scheduled, it will be the first execution since the Supreme Court's ruling. Reuters has more. AP has additional coverage.

In September 2007, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Baze v. Rees [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], allowing it to consider whether the three-drug lethal injection cocktail [DPIC backgrounder] used in most states violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This led to an effective moratorium [JURIST report] on the death penalty in the United States as many federal courts, state courts, and state governors put executions on hold pending the high court's ruling. Several other US states have already announced that they will resume executions by lethal injection [JURIST report]. The Georgia Supreme Court had previously stayed the execution of another condemned inmate [JURIST report] while Baze v. Rees was pending before the US Supreme Court.

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