Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

 (1879), is a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

  case in which the Court affirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah

Utah Territory

The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah....

 in stating that execution by firing squad

Execution by firing squad

Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading , is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war.Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice...

, as prescribed by the Utah territorial statute, was not cruel and unusual punishment

Cruel and unusual punishment

Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing criminal punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person...

 under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...

.

Baze v. Rees

In April 2008, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....

 cited the case of Wilkerson v. Utah in affirming that Kentucky's method of execution by lethal injection

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...

 did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

See also

• Capital punishment in Utah
• Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
  
  
• Wallace Wilkerson
  Wallace Wilkerson
  Wallace Wilkerson was an American stockman who was sentenced to death by the Territory of Utah for the murder of William Baxter. Wilkerson professed his innocence, but chose to die by firing squad over hanging or decapitation...
  
  

External links

• Wilkerson v. Utah at FindLaw
  FindLaw
  FindLaw is a business of Thomson Reuters that provides online legal information and online marketing services for law firms. FindLaw was created by Stacy Stern, Martin Roscheisen and Tim Stanley in 1995, and was acquired by Thomson West in 2001....
  
  (October 1878 term of the U.S. Supreme Court)