Follow-up execution method readings

As promised, here are follow-up (optional) readings to foster our continued discussion of execution methods:

• This past summer I wrote an article about litgation over lethal injection's constitutionality entitled, Finding Bickel Gold in a Hill of Beans, which appeared in the 2005-2006 CATO SUPREME COURT REVIEW (Cato Institute 2006).  Here is how the abstract begins:

The Supreme Court's decision to consider in Hill v. McDonough a death row defendant's challenge to Florida's lethal injection protocol resulted in widespread legal confusion and the disruption of executions nationwide. The Court's subsequent ruling in Hill raised more legal questions than it answered and ensured that death row defendants would continue to disrupt scheduled executions by pursuing litigation over lethal injections protocols.

• Here, from this Amnesty International link, is a list of worldwide execution methods:

Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:

- Beheading (in Saudi Arabia, Iraq)
- Electrocution (in USA)
- Hanging (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)
- Lethal injection (in China, Guatemala, Philippines, Thailand, USA)
- Shooting (in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and other countries)
- Stoning (in Afghanistan, Iran)