A long-awaited trial was supposed to decide whether Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocol was cruel and unusual punishment. But it was rigged from the start.
Summary: That is a decision released last month, Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, which is likely to result in the execution of an innocent man. For the wrongfully convicted, it sets a precedent that shatters the hope that they can get new evidence of innocence examined by a federal court.
The court’s conservatives have pared back the Sixth Amendment’s protections so that it won’t impede the state’s ability to erroneously execute the innocent.