May 24, 2021- 12:00 p.m.
The Supreme Court rejected a bid Monday by an ill death-row inmate to be executed by firing squad out of fear a lethal injection may cause excruciating pain.
The inmate, Ernest Johnson, has epilepsy caused by a brain tumor — and he believes a lethal injection execution may cause a torturous epileptic seizure, Reuters reported.
Johnson, who was sentenced to death for a triple murder he carried while robbing a gas station in 1994, argued that it would violate his Eighth Amendment rights, which bars cruel and unusual punishment.
The three liberal justices on the nine-panel court all cast dissenting votes, according to Reuters.
“Missouri is now free to execute Johnson in a manner that, at this stage of the litigation, we must assume will be akin to torture given his unique medical condition,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion.
Ernest Johnson argued lethal injection would result in “cruel and unusual punishment.”
