My take on the other side of Hill

The folks at The Cato Institute were kind enough to invite me to contribute a piece to their annual Cato Supreme Court Review.  (That review will be released here next week in conjunction with this Cato conference entitled, The Supreme Court: Past and Prologue; A Look at the October 2005 and October 2006 Terms.")  My piece is entitled "Finding Bickel Gold in a Hill of Beans," and you will have to downloaded the piece (available below) to understand what the heck I mean.  To whet your appetite, here is my opening paragraph:

"First, do no harm," is a common aphorism for the medical profession.  If the Supreme Court was judged by this principle, its work in Hill v. McDonough might lead some to urge revoking the justices' licenses.  The Court's decision to consider Clarence Hill's challenge to Florida's lethal injection protocol resulted in widespread legal confusion and the disruption of executions nationwide.  The Court's subsequent ruling in Hill raised more legal questions than it answered and ensured that death row defendants would continue to disrupt scheduled executions by pursuing litigation over lethal injections protocols.

Download final_cato_article_on_hill.pdf