The four more liberal members of the Court — who probably were the ones who cast the four necessary votes to hear the challenge to Oklahoma’s execution protocol — used Wednesday’s hearing to probe in close detail how that protocol works, and what its justifications were. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. accused those of trying to prevent the use of the drug midazolam as part of a lethal injection procedure in Oklahoma of waging a “guerrilla war against the death penalty.” Repeated challenges of lethal injection procedures, he said, were meant only to delay the implementation of executions. The states, Scalia said, have tried other drugs, and those have been made unavailable “by the abolitionists putting pressure on the companies that manufacture them so that the states cannot obtain those other drugs.” The reason midazalom may not be “100 percent” certain to mask pain, he added, “is because the abolitionists have rendered it impossible to get the 100 percent sure drugs, and you think we should not view that as relevant to the decision that you’re putting before us?” 
 
 The inmates’ lawyers tried to respond that it was irrelevant, because the Court was obliged to examine the constitutionality of a particular protocol a state chose to use. Justice Sonia Sotomayor slammed Oklahoma's lawyer, Solicitor General Patrick Wyrick, for what she characterized as deceptive misstatements in the state's brief. The Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedure, a case that stemmed from a botched execution in Oklahoma. They pummeled the Oklahoma solicitor general, Patrick R. Wyrick, with hard questions about the effects of midazalom, and even questioned the sincerity of the claims that the state had made in its brief in the case. [Oklahoma recently made nitrogen gas its backup execution method] 
 
 These arguments came a year to the day after a botched execution in Oklahoma left an inmate writhing and grimacing on a gurney, drawing international attention to issues facing the lethal injection process in the United States. The question is whether it puts condemned inmates into a coma-like state before two other drugs are given, protecting them from the kind of pain that would violate the Eighth Amendment restriction on cruel and unusual punishment. Before long, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., joined in this line of questioning, pressing Konrad to come up with suggestions of alternatives that would enable the states to proceed with capital punishment. But, he said, until that happens, “is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” 
 
 He went on: “And so the states are reduced to using drugs like this one [midazalom] which give rise to disputes about whether, in fact, every possibility of pain is eliminated.” 
 
 After Konrad replied that it was the duty of the courts to decide whether a method of execution was constitutional, Justice Antonin Scalia took up Alito’s point. “We’ve seen that lethal injection is not the swift, painless, effective method of causing death that it was made out to be,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. [What the Supreme Court’s decision here could mean for the death penalty] 
 
 The week before the justices decided to accept the lethal injection case, Oklahoma carried out its first execution since Lockett was put to death. Analysis 
 
 For months, the Supreme Court has given no explanation as it refused to give inmates awaiting execution any chance to learn about the methods by which they would be put to death, and has said nothing as it allowed states to experiment with new lethal-drug combinations even after some of those executions were seriously botched.
– Things got about as nasty as they get in the Supreme Court chambers as the justices today debated the constitutionality of a lethal-injection drug. Samuel Alito, for example, accused opponents of the death penalty of engaging in a "guerrilla war" to stop it, while Elena Kagan likened the execution protocol to being burned alive, reports the Washington Post. At issue specifically is whether the first drug in a three-drug combination used by Oklahoma works well enough—critics say the sedative, midazolam, fails to make the following two drugs painless. Kagan likened the effects of one of those drugs to being "burned alive from the inside" and wondered whether the state would sanction burning at the stake after administering an iffy anesthetic, reports NBC News. "Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will," she said. "We just can't tell." Antonin Scalia, meanwhile, declared that states can't get "100 percent" drugs because death-penalty "abolitionists" are making it impossible with their pressure on manufacturers. The big question, as usual, is where probable swing vote Anthony Kennedy stands. "It seemed clear that he, too, was frustrated with the resistance movement and what it required the Justices to do to examine each state’s approach to executions," writes Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog. Meaning that when the decision is eventually announced, it will probably be bad news for death-row inmates. (The arguments came exactly one year after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma.)