WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection executions Wednesday, likely clearing the way to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 8 months.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

"We ... agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Chief Justice John Roberts said in an opinion that garnered only three votes. Four other justices, however, agreed with the outcome.

Roberts' opinion did leave open subsequent challenges to lethal injection practices if a state refused to adopt an alternative method that significantly reduced the risk of severe pain.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Executions have been on hold since September, when the court agreed to hear the Kentucky case. There was no immediate indication when they would resume.

The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of those drugs, a paralytic, would render the prisoner unable to express his discomfort.

The case before the court came from Kentucky, where two death row inmates did not ask to be spared execution or death by injection. Instead, they wanted the court to order a switch to a single drug, a barbiturate, that causes no pain and can be given in a large enough dose to cause death.

At the very least, they said, the state should be required to impose tighter controls on the three-drug process to ensure that the anesthetic is given properly.

Roberts said the one-drug method, frequently used in animal euthanasia, "has problems of its own, and has never been tried by a single state."

Kentucky has had only one execution by lethal injection and it did not present any obvious problems, both sides in the case agreed.

But executions elsewhere, in Florida and Ohio, took much longer than usual, with strong indications that the prisoners suffered severe pain in the process. Workers had trouble inserting the IV lines that are used to deliver the drugs.

Roberts said "a condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a state's method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative."

Ginsburg, in her dissent, said she would ask Kentucky courts to consider whether the state includes adequate safeguards to ensure a prisoner is unconscious and thus unlikely to suffer severe pain.

Now I read this and about puked! Since when should we as citizens care if a MURDERER suffers a little agony in his punishment. So what if he suffers a little, why is he so scared now. Where was his concern when he killed his victim. Did they beg for mercy or scream in pain? Why does the criminal get more consideration than the victim!

Problem is in this country we do not execute enough. You just about have to committ a heinious crime to even possibaly get the death penelty, many times it is commuted to life, and even if it is not commuted they know the average stay on death row is 15 years.

We call ourselves civalized and yet we are the murder capital of the world, excluding countries in war. If we were to use the death penelty a lot more, spread it over more charges instead of just the worst, perform the execution in a timely manner, we would see a dramatic decrease in crime. I know many say there would be no drop, but they are talking from way inside their ass! When a person knows there is very little chance of any dynamic punishment for their crime, why woudl they worry. Today, you will get more time on average for drug dealing then killing a person.

I know I will not convice any liberal that the death penelty has its merit. But for the rest of us, can we not see that we need to quit caring about the criminal, and more about our safety and the victim. We need to bring back public executions so that our country can see the price you will pay for taking a life. And we need to quit caring about the fact of does a criminal feel a little pain when their due date comes up. Take a life, yours will be taken should be our motto.

Funny how most bleeding hearts continue to bleed until it is their mom who is raped, beaten, and killed. Then all of  a sudden the death penelty is not such a bad thing!