With execution chambers from California to Florida idle, the
U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will offer an unprecedented glimpse
into how the justices assess the legal conflict over the
business of administering a fatal dose of drugs to death row
inmates.  The Supreme Court, faced with mounting legal chaos
across the country over lethal injection, will hear arguments
challenging Kentucky's execution method -- the same procedure
favored in virtually every state that has a death penalty. The
justices will directly confront the constitutionality of an
execution method for the first time since the 1870s, when they
upheld Utah's firing squads.  The high court is expected to rule
by the end of its term in June, or at the very least devising a
road map for what states must do to ensure the executions they
carry out are as humane as possible.  On one side, lawyers for
death row inmates argue that states have grown so sloppy
carrying out executions that they should not resume unless the
the Supreme Court establishes stri