A majority of the Supreme Court justices expressed concern Wednesday about whether condemned inmates experience excruciating pain during lethal injections.
However, several justices also questioned whether a convicted killer who wants to challenge Florida's method of lethal injection is simply trying to avoid execution after his other appeals have been rejected by lower courts.

Justice Anthony Kennedy appeared to be the justice in the middle of a divided, nine-member court Wednesday, as he has been in other recent cases. He sharply questioned lawyers for the state of Florida and the U.S. Justice Department who asked the court to reject death row inmate Clarence Hill's case. Hill is trying to get a hearing to challenge lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment that should be prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

"Doesn't the state have a minimum obligation on its own to investigate" whether a lethal-injection procedure causes unnecessary pain, Kennedy asked.

Wednesday's case does not directly test the constitutionality of the injection procedure used in nearly all of the 38 states that have the death penalty. It focuses on whether an inmate who has exhausted his usual appeals can use civil rights law to get a hearing on his claim against the execution method.

Hill was convicted in 1983 of the murder of a police officer in 1982.

He claims Florida's lethal-injection process, which involves three drugs, could subject inmates to needless pain because no medical professional is on hand to make sure inmates are fully anesthetized before the final deadly drug is given.
The dispute has drawn national attention because several inmate appeals across the country have challenged the lethal-injection process. This year, eight executions have been postponed because of such claims.

On Wednesday, Justice John Paul Stevens questioned how Florida could have certain rules for euthanizing pets but not for the lethal injections of inmates.

Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer also appeared open to Hill's claim that he should get a hearing on whether the state's method of lethal injection violates the Constitution.

Hill argues that the combination of drugs typically used in executions can cause unnecessary pain before death. The usual injection involves an anesthesia, then a drug that paralyzes the inmate so he cannot move or cry out, and finally a drug that stops the heart.

Todd Doss, Hill's attorney, said Hill was not trying to contest his basic death sentence, as lower courts declared. Doss said that if Hill won his case, Florida still would be able to execute him — using a more "humane" method.

Carolyn Snurkowski, assistant deputy Florida attorney general, argued that Hill cannot bring a civil rights claim unless he offers an alternative to Florida's legal injection method.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia suggested they believed that if Hill prevailed, he and other inmates would challenge whatever execution method states devised.