LOTS OF ACTION IN THE SUPREME COURT THIS MORNING. The lethal injection is saved in a 5-4 decision. There’s a lively Breyer dissent rejecting the death penalty across the board, to which Scalia and Thomas respond vividly in concurrences. Alito writes the main opinion (which I typo’d as “the man opinion” on my home blog). Arizona’s use of an independent commission for legislative redistricting is upheld 5-4. Scalia has the EPA case, which is also 5-4, so you can picture where that came out. All 5-4 cases, all in the conventional liberal/conservative split. Sorry not to write more on all of this over here!

ADDED: From Alito’s opinion in the death penalty case (Glossip v. Gross, PDF):

[W]e find it appropriate to respond to the principal dissent’s groundless suggestion that our decision is tantamount to allowing prisoners to be “drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake.” That is simply not true, and the principal dissent’s resort to this outlandish rhetoric reveals the weakness of its legal arguments.

AND: To be clear, Justice Breyer finding “highly likely” the death penalty is unconstitutional across the board and calls for a full briefing on the subject.