US executions like being burned alive, says Supreme Court justice

US executions like being burned alive, says Supreme Court justice: He is so bewildered by the finding that he suggested some Supreme Court members should be wearing clown suits rather than judicial robes.

It is not for defence lawyers, he points out, to come up with new effective ways for the state to kill their clients.

The same point was raised by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her angry dissenting opinion.

"Under the court's new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake: because petitioners failed to prove the availability of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, the state could execute them using whatever means it designated," she wrote.

Despite the finding Professor Radelet believes the use of the death penalty will continue to decline – and eventually expire – in America because the arguments that sustain it have collapsed.

Evidence shows it is more expensive to execute inmates than imprison them because the death penalty necessitates automatic appeals. It shows it does not act as a deterrent and that it is applied arbitrarily, with poor and minority citizens far more likely to face execution.