MICHAEL C. DORF How the Supreme Court's Lethal Injection Ruling Elevates Appearances Over Reality FindLaw columnist and Columbia law professor Michael Dorf takes strong issue with the Supreme Court's recent ruling holding the current three-drug lethal injection protocol constitutional. Dorf focuses in particular on one argument that was expressly accepted by Chief Justice Roberts: that the administration of a three-drug cocktail that risks inflicting intense pain might still be justified by the need to stop the prisoner from experiencing convulsions that might disturb spectators. Dorf takes Roberts to task for accepting the risk of severe pain in order to preserve mere appearances. He also draws a parallel to the aesthetic considerations that drove the prior "partial birth" abortion ruling, which allowed fetuses to be dismembered in the womb, but not outside it.