Baze is one of those dreaded splintered opinions where we will have to pick our way through to figure out what the law is for some time to come. Even so, there are a number of important points on which the Court not only has a coherent majority but actually is unanimous. These are worth noting.

The plaintiffs got no support for a standard of "unnecessary risk" in the sense that any method of execution could be challenged indefinitely into the future merely by showing that some other method had less risk of pain. Justice Ginsburg writes at page 4, "Proof of 'a slightly or marginally safer alternative' is, as the plurality notes, insufficient."

No one endorses the argument that monitoring by a person qualified to assess "anesthetic depth" is required. See petitioner's brief 57-59. The plurality recognizes the Catch-22 strategy of requiring the participation of people who are forbidden to participate and rejects it. No one on the Court disagrees.

No justice buys the argument that a single-drug protocol is constitutionally required. The contrary standard for human euthanasia in the Netherlands pretty well neutralized the veterinary standard argument. A comment in the Stevens opinion was the only positive mention of that argument, and both the plurality and Justice Breyer dismiss it.

All appear to be agreed that the three-drug protocol is clearly constitutional in those states that add a consciousness check after the pentothal injection. The main point of the dissent is to emphasize that such a check sharply reduces the chances of a "botched" execution. Kentucky and other states that do not yet have such a check would be well advised to add one.