California court rulings have put the death penalty on hold since 2006 and the latest ruling gives 700 Death Row inmates an indefinite reprieve
While switching to single-drug executions was upheld in Washington after only six months of litigation, were California to switch from its three-dose cocktail to a single drug, the state’s liberal judges would find ways of delaying such executions indefinitely.
From Friday’s Los Angeles Times:
California revised its death penalty protocol in 2010 after a federal judge blocked executions on the grounds the state's methods exposed inmates to the possibility of inhumane suffering. In response to that judge's concerns, the state even built a new execution chamber at San Quentin. It has never been used.
The halt to executions has caused California's death row to swell to 736 inmates, the largest in the nation. Condemned inmates, housed at San Quentin, are more likely to die of old age or suicide than by an executioner's needle.
A spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Friday that no decision has been made on whether to appeal Thursday's ruling to the California Supreme Court or propose a new lethal injection method. The corrections department has been considering a single-drug method of execution for months.
Seven states [including Texas] have executed inmates with a single dose of an anesthetic, and four other states have one-drug protocols but have not yet used them, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The three-drug method used by California has been controversial because it involves a paralyzing agent that could mask extreme suffering.
"States that have gone to single-drug executions got their litigation dismissed pretty quickly," Scheidigger said. "The state of Washington adopted it in March, litigation was dismissed in midsummer, and they carried out an execution in the fall. That was six months from adoption to execution."
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