Posted on 03/04/2006 3:57:21 PM PST by Former Military Chick
The state of California has proposed altering the amount of life-ending drugs to be used in executions and would continually drip a sedative into prisoners to make sure they don't become conscious during the process, prosecutors said Friday.
California's chief death penalty prosecutor, Dane Gillette, said at a hearing that the changes would ensure that a prisoner "would not experience wanton or unnecessary pain."
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel didn't say whether he would approve of the new method.
The proposal responds to a lawsuit brought by Michael Morales, who was scheduled to be executed Feb. 21. The injection was canceled and the state's capital punishment system left in legal limbo after San Quentin State Prison could not comply with Fogel's order for changes to ensure Morales would not feel too much pain.
Hearings had been set for May 2 to determine whether the state's current method amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Those hearings will now focus on the new procedure.
A week before Morales' scheduled execution, Fogel recommended that California employ two anesthesiologists to ensure Morales' unconsciousness.
The anesthesiologists, citing ethical concerns, bowed out at the 11th hour. So Fogel ordered a licensed medical professional, instead of a prison staffer, to administer the injection. No specialist stepped forward, and Morales' death warrant expired.
That essentially created a moratorium on capital punishment in California, home to the nation's largest death row.
Morales attorney Richard Steinken said the new method might still amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
"This tinkering hardly resolves all of our concerns," he said.
Among them was that the new protocol _ like the old one _ doesn't require licensed medical professionals to ensure no mistakes in the injection procedure, he said.
Fogel ordered the changes in Morales' execution after studying the medical logs of executed inmates and finding that there were "substantial questions" about whether prisoners were conscious and feeling unacceptable levels of pain once a paralyzing agent was administered.
"It seems like they're experimenting at this point," said John Grele, another attorney for Morales, who is on death row for torturing, raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl 25 years ago.
Thirty-seven of 38 states with capital punishment use lethal injection. While doctors participate in them to some degree, none kill the patient.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never addressed whether lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
I think they should just tie his nuts to one end of a rope and the other to the bridge span and throw him off the golden gate bridge.
Be sure that needle is well sterilized. We wouldn't want him to get infected, even though we're killing him anyway...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
I strongly recommend that California set the hypodermics to the curb and replace them with a nice reliable 7.62 mm NATO round, administered through an equally reliable M-14. With a properly trained "administrator" (yours truly for instance), it is guaranteed to achieve the desired results with absolutely no pain at all for the individual that is on the receiving end, unlike what that individual's victims evidently suffered.
Just a thought.
San Quentin State Prison wants to slightly change the composition of the three-drug death cocktail and the manner by which it would be injected in response to a lawsuit brought by a condemned prisoner.
In response to those allegations, the state on Friday altered the amount of the three drugs to be used and, most significantly, said it would continually drip a sedative into the prisoner to make sure he doesn't become conscious once the paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs are injected.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
The judge?
If they're so concerned about causing the executee pain, why not just pump them full of some opium derivative until their heart stops? There's probably a bunch of heroin hanging around in an evidence locker somewhere. It would save money to do it this way, too.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
"U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel didn't say whether he would approve of the new method."
How could he REALLY know unless he tries the new
drug procedure on himself?
Use an axe.
Remember that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause wasn't even applicable against the states until in 1962 (Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660) the Warren court concluded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was broad enough to include it.
Good grief - why don't they use a dart gun like they do with animals when they want to put them to sleep so they can rescue them - or to keep them from attacking.
Nobody in the animal community seems to have a problem with that .. but they're worried some slimy killer might be in pain when he dies .. I hope to hell he is!
Francis v. Resweber 329 U.S. 459 (1947)
a State may be found to deny a person due process by treating even one guilty of crime in a manner that violates standards of decency more or less universally accepted though not when it treats him by a mode about which opinion is fairly divided. But the penological policy of a State is not to be tested by the scope of the Eighth Amendment and is not involved in the controversy which is necessarily evoked by that Amendment as to the historic meaning of 'cruel and unusual punishment'. See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 ,
We have travelled a long way since 1947, haven't we?
A guillotine costs about 200 calories to operate and is painless. By putting the head between the legs upon burial we can shorten the caskets and save money too.
That was harsh even for me.
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