Scalia’s perfect capital-punishment case falls apart

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The lethal injection chamber of the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls on Oct. 9, 2012. Photo by Amber Hunt/AP
Scalia’s perfect capital-punishment case falls apart
06/05/15 By Steve Benen
A little over two decades ago, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was dismissive of then-Justice Harry Blackmun’s concerns about the death penalty. In fact, Scalia had a case study in mind that demonstrated exactly why the system of capital punishment has value.
As regular readers may recall, Scalia specifically pointed to a convicted killer named Henry Lee McCollum as an obvious example of a man who deserved to be put to death. “For example, the case of an 11-year-old girl raped by four men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat,” Scalia wrote in a 1994 ruling. “How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared…