The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an Alabama death row inmate could pursue his claim that the lethal injection procedures in his case constitute cruel and unusual punishment. David Nelson, who was less than three hours away from his scheduled execution last fall when the Supreme Court gave him a temporary reprieve, had filed a claim under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Law stating that his damaged veins would make it impossible to insert an intravenous line without cutting deep into flesh and muscle. Nelson said that such a procedure was a violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment. Alabama maintained that this claim was simply part of Nelson’s death penalty appeal and should be dismissed because it was filed too late. The Justices ruled that lower courts were wrong to block appeals by Nelson, and, in the opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Justices agreed that Nelson’s claim was separate from any challenge to his sentence or conviction. Physicians have stated that the cut-down procedure the state would use to find a vein for lethal injection could cause Nelson to badly hemorrhage and suffer heart problems prior to his death caused by the lethal injection drugs. (See Associated Press, May 24, 2004) See Execution Methods. See also, Supreme Court.