A team of leading UK lawyers has intervened to halt the execution by lethal injection this week of America’s longest-serving prisoner on “death row” — pending a US Supreme Court decision on whether the method is “cruel or unnecessary.”
Lawyers from Clifford Chance, the world’s biggest law firm, along with a group of top barristers led by Richard Lissack, QC, are calling for the execution of Jack Alderman this week to be stopped — at least until the Supreme Court has ruled.
Mr Alderman, who has been on death row for 32 years, is due to be executed next Friday by lethal injection, although the US Supreme Court recently suspended the execution of another death row prisoner, pending an appeal that “lethal injection” breaches the US Constitution as “cruel or inhuman” punishment.
It is the first time that the Supreme Court has examined the issue since 2004 and the only time it has ruled directly on a method of execution since 1878 when it upheld the use of the firing squad.
