"You think that there are circumstances in which burning alive would not be a violation of the Eighth Amendment? Burning somebody alive would not be a violation of the Eighth Amendment?"

Justice Alito expressed amazement at the hedging of the the lawyer who opposed the way the state of Oklahoma delivered the death penalty. Listen:



The case is Glossip v. Gross, and the question is about the drug that is supposed to leave the condemned man completely unconscious while another drug kills him. This strange colloquy took place at the end of the argument: Click for more �