Sotomayor Calls Out Secrecy Laws in Tenn. Death Case

Justice Sonia Sotomayor May 13 chided her colleagues’ ignoring the “injustice of state secrecy laws denying death-row prisoners access to potentially crucial information” to succeed in their cruel and unusual punishment claims.

The dissent came in the denial of a Supreme Court petition from Tennessee prisoners challenging their executions on cruel and unusual punishment grounds, which requires them to show alternative methods that would be less cruel. Sotomayor and other justices have criticized that rule as too burdensome on inmates.

But the prisoners paint the task as particularly difficult here, owing to the states’ secrecy laws that they say prevents ...