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| San Quentin's new execution chamber |
A judge on Friday threw out California's new lethal-injection protocols, which have been six years in the making, because corrections officials failed to consider a one-drug execution method now in practice in other death penalty states.
The action by Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D'Opal sends the state back to square one in redrafting procedures for lethal-injection executions. The death penalty has been on hold for six years in California after a federal court ruling deemed the previously used three-drug method unconstitutional because it might inflict pain amounting to cruel and unusual punishment.
D'Opal said in her 22-page ruling that the state's failure to consider replacing the former execution practice with a single-injection method violated state law and ignored the courts' and public criticism of the previous protocols.
The de facto moratorium on executions imposed by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in February 2006, when he halted the scheduled lethal-injection execution of convicted murderer Michael A. Morales, has remained in place despite the state's revision of the procedures to address Fogel's concerns.
D'Opal's ruling, though expected to be appealed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, would further stall federal court review of the new protocols and ensure that executions won't resume for years.
D'Opal's ruling, though expected to be appealed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, would further stall federal court review of the new protocols and ensure that executions won't resume for years.
Source: Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2011
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