Regardless of how heinous the murderer's crime is, the constitution stipulates that "cruel and unusual" punishment is illegal, and because the constitution is written with an assumption of equality, this suggests that the standard applies to everyone. Furthermore, Saunders and other pro-lethal injection lobbyists' opinion that lethal injection is not cruel due to the amount of anesthetic given are directly encountered by physical evidence, such as the burn marks Weil notes were observed on the body of one executed man and the lack of execution training that Weil argues is commonly practiced. In addition, proponents of legal injection may note that lethal injection is not unusual, in that 37 of the 50 states use this method (Weil). But when viewed in globally, the United States, paired with the likes of China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan, performed 91% of all executions (Amnesty International). Thus, among industrialized democracies, lethal injection, executions...
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