You can't expect the average Joe on the street to understand precisely what a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court is about.  I do expect the press to get it right, but I'm not shocked at an occasional error.

What is shocking, though, is for the Attorney General of the United States to completely misunderstand what a case before the high court is about. 

Sari Horwitz reports in the WaPo:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that he would support a national moratorium on lethal injections until the Supreme Court reviews the protocol used in a botched execution in Oklahoma last year.

*                                              *                                           *

"The Supreme Court's determination as to whether or not lethal injection is consistent with our Constitution is one that ought to occur," Holder said after reiterating his personal opposition to the death penalty.

"I think a moratorium until the Supreme Court made that determination would be appropriate."

That is the most ignorant statement I have ever heard from an Attorney General.

The Supreme Court is not determining whether lethal injection generally is consistent with the Constitution.  There is no serious question that the single-drug pentobarbital method that Texas has used without incident nearly 40 times is constitutional.  The case of Glossip v. Gross does not involve any question that would call that method into question.  That case involves the three-drug method used in Oklahoma, with midazolam as the first drug and with additional drugs to follow that would surely cause extreme pain if the inmate is not anesthetized by the first one.

To call for a national moratorium on all lethal injections, including those not implicated by the method involved in the case, is irresponsible and ignorant.  If Mr. Holder is concerned about the method being used in Oklahoma, he should show some leadership in helping to break down the barriers to the states' acquisition of pentobarbital.

The sooner he is gone the better.