"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 �

"Investigators believe Freddie Gray suffered serious head injuries while he was in a police transport van... his legs were shackled and he wasn�t wearing a seat belt..."

"... which authorities say was a violation of policy. They said officers ignored his pleas for medical help."

One wound occurred when Gray struck his head on a bolt that jutted out in the van, the official said, but that was not Gray�s only head injury. And the injuries overall are consistent with what medical examiners often see in car collisions, the official said.

So, you shackle a man, put him in a van with jutting bolts, and then you drive the van in such a way that he slams into things hard enough to cause multiple injuries, and the man dies of those injuries.

That's worse that shooting a man on the street, where there's some argument of needing to stop him. The shackled man enclosed in a vehicle is already completely restrained. There's no harm to say you needed to stop.

I think of torture devices like the iron maiden, where a helpless person is shut inside something that is designed and intended to injure him.



UPDATE: "Freddie Gray death ruled a homicide; six Baltimore police officers charged."