1. Research the subject of criminal punishment and the Eighth Amendment. How has this amendment been interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court in the past thirty years? How does criminal punishment differ now from a century ago? From twenty years ago?
2. Recent research indicates that the use of lethal injection may cause severe physical pain and suffering that is not detectable to observers when executioners use combinations of drugs that paralyze the condemned prisoner instead of rendering the prisoner completely unconscious before death. If prisoners are conscious, paralyzed, and suffering from severe physical pain in addition to severe emotional distress, does this method of execution constitute impermissibly “cruel and unusual punishment” under contemporary standards, in light of the fact that other drugs are available that would render the prisoner unconscious during the process?