Supreme Court rulings won't end lawsuits

From now on, legal experts contend, most court arguments will turn on that specific issue. "Every defendant will say our state is not like Kentucky. Every pro-death penalty state will say our protocols are just like Kentucky's," Berman said.

The high court's other ruling is more definitive. Justices declared that executing child rapists was disproportionate to the crime committed. Capital punishment applies only to killers, justices said, and to crimes against the state.

Death row lawyers said Kentucky attorneys had been barred from presenting evidence showing death by an intravenous line had caused severe pain in other jurisdictions. All lethal injection states use some kind of triple-dose procedure that first delivers an anesthetic to put the inmate to sleep, then a second paralyzing chemical, and a final dose that stops the heart.

It was developed by an Oklahoma coroner in 1977 and has little changed. It was designed to avoid distasteful deaths associated with electric chairs and gas chambers--executions in which some inmates had been set afire and others choked and convulsed from toxic fumes.

Lethal injection was less objectionable, prison officials said, and its paralyzing agent would ease discomfort to those witnessing executions.

But if anesthesia is not administered correctly, or in a high enough dose, inmates remain awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues, say inmate attorneys. Paralysis prevents the prisoner from speaking or expressing pain while enduring suffocation and, ultimately, cardiac arrest, they say.

Among their examples is a 1989 Texas execution during which inmate Stephen McCoy reacted violently to the toxic chemicals entering his body and began choking and seizing, despite being restrained. A male witness fainted, knocking over another witness. A state official later said a heavier dose might have been warranted.

Justices themselves appeared conflicted on the issue of lethal injection, as well as the death penalty. Despite their 7-2 vote, they issued seven separate written opinions.

Justices Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed that the narrowness of the case would only create more death penalty lawsuits. "This never ends," said Scalia. Justice Samuel Alito disagreed, saying correct interpretation of the court's standard would not lead to "never-ending litigation."

For the first time, Justice John Paul Stevens--who voted with the court majority to reinstate executions in 1976--said he'd changed his mind about capital punishment.