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GLOSSIP v. GROSS SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

erably risky given the alternative procedures the State could have employed. Addressing this claim, the Baze plurality clarified that “a condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a State’s method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative,” 553 U. S., at 51; instead, to succeed in a challenge of this type, the comparative risk must be “substantial,” id., at 61. Nowhere did the plurality suggest that all challenges to a State’s method of execu­ tion would require this sort of comparative-risk analysis. Recognizing the relevance of available alternatives is not at all the same as concluding that their absence precludes a claimant from showing that a chosen method carries objectively intolerable risks. If, for example, prison offi­ cials chose a method of execution that has a 99% chance of causing lingering and excruciating pain, certainly that risk would be objectively intolerable whether or not the officials ignored other methods in making this choice. Irrespective of the existence of alternatives, there are some risks “so grave that it violates contemporary stand­ ards of decency to expose anyone unwillingly to” them. Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25, 36 (1993) (emphasis in original). That the Baze plurality’s statement regarding a con­ demned inmate’s ability to point to an available alterna­ tive means of execution pertained only to challenges prem­ ised on the existence of such alternatives is further evidenced by the opinion’s failure to distinguish or even mention the Court’s unanimous decision in Hill v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 573. Hill held that a §1983 plain­ tiff challenging a State’s method of execution need not “identif[y] an alternative, authorized method of execution.” Id., at 582. True, as the Court notes, ante, at 14–15, Hill did so in the context of addressing §1983’s pleading stand­ ard, rejecting the proposed alternative-means requirement because the Court saw no basis for the “[i]mposition of