With the stays of exe­cu­tion in Virginia on October 17 and in Georgia on October 18, it appears like­ly that no more lethal injec­tions will take place in this coun­try until the U.S. Supreme Court ren­ders a deci­sion in Baze v. Rees, a case chal­leng­ing the lethal injec­tion process in Kentucky. Christopher Emmett in Virginia was grant­ed a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court just hours before his exe­cu­tion. Jack Alderman’s lethal injec­tion was stayed by the Georgia Supreme Court a day before it was to occur. Stays have also been grant­ed in numer­ous oth­er states by oth­er fed­er­al courts, by state courts, and by gov­er­nors. The Death Penalty Information Centers Web site con­tains a num­ber of resources relat­ed to lethal injection:

  • Lethal Injection Web Page: This Web page con­tains a gen­er­al overview of the con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions the U.S. Supreme Court will con­sid­er when it hears Baze v. Rees next year, as well as details about the sta­tus of lethal injec­tion chal­lenges and stays of exe­cu­tions across the coun­try. In addi­tion, the page con­tains infor­ma­tion about the drugs used to car­ry out lethal injec­tions and a list of the 37 states that use this method. Lastly, the page includes links to state­ments from med­ical orga­ni­za­tions and addi­tion­al resources relat­ed to this topic.
  • Stays of Executions: This chart details stays of exe­cu­tion relat­ed to lethal injec­tion chal­lenges since 2006.
  • States Where Executions are on Hold: DPIC’s Death Penalty in Flux” Web page con­tains a chart that details all states where exe­cu­tions are on hold, includ­ing states with for­mal mora­to­ri­ums and states where exe­cu­tions have been halt­ed due to con­cerns about the method of execution.
  • Methods of Execution: This page con­tains the meth­ods used in each of the 38 death penal­ty states, includ­ing states that offer inmates a choice of method, and the num­ber of exe­cu­tions by each method.
  • Botched Executions: Contains exam­ples of exe­cu­tions where seri­ous prob­lems have arisen in car­ry­ing out executions.
  • Upcoming Executions: This page allows users to track sched­uled exe­cu­tions and fol­low devel­op­ments such as stays and commutations.
  • Supreme Court: Contains a more com­plete descrip­tion of the issues fac­ing the Court in the lethal injec­tion case from Kentucky, Baze v. Rees.

(For stay in Virginia, see Wash. Post, Oct. 18, 2007; oth­er infor­ma­tion from DPIC sources).

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