Posted on 05/15/2007 9:27:23 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California said on Tuesday it would revise its lethal injection procedure to ensure "a dignified end of life" for condemned inmates as it seeks to overcome a U.S. judge's objections to the procedure.
In December, Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose ruled the "implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed" and gave the nation's most-populous state a chance to revise how it metes out its ultimate punishment.
Lawyers for a condemned California inmate had argued that lethal injection was "cruel and unusual" punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution. With the fate of 666 condemned inmates in the balance, California filed its response on Tuesday. The lethal injection method is used in 37 U.S. states.
"The revisions to California's Lethal Injection Protocol will result in the dignified end of life for the condemned inmate," according to a report submitted to the court by California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former governor of the state.
The state said it would still use a three-drug combination. The first, sodium thiopental, renders prisoners unconscious and keeps them in that state before the injection of pancuronium bromide, which induces paralysis, and then potassium chloride, which sparks cardiac arrest.
California said it would institute a formal process of selecting and training execution team members at San Quentin prison north of San Francisco where it administers the death penalty.
The training would include lessons on mixing sodium thiopental, a powder that must be mixed with a liquid for use in the process. Executioners would have to monitor inmates more closely to assure inmate were unconscious before the two lethal chemicals would start to flow.
The state said it would also build a new "Lethal Injection Facility" at San Quentin.
"I am committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that the lethal injection process is constitutional so the will of the people is upheld," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I am confident that the plan submitted to Judge Fogel will address his concerns and allow the state to enforce the law of the land."
As part of its efforts to improve the execution protocol, California said it sent a survey to 37 states for their insights, and received input from 15. Officials also visited execution facilities in Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana.
California has executed 11 inmates since starting to use lethal injection in 1996. It has not executed anyone since Fogel halted the execution in January 2006 of Michael Morales for the 1981 rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl.
Courts in more than a dozen states are also reviewing the legality of lethal injection.
Gas would be dignified. Or hanging. Or a firing squad.
It’d be a lot cheaper to just ship the Death Row inmates to Texas... or go to a 3 bullet instead of 3 drug combo as the final act.
Paint an X ring on their forehead, load 5 round clip into your favorite .45, apply liberally.
I don’t care how it’s done, just get on with it!
I think lethal injection of Draino is more dignity than they deserve.
Is rigging the Electric Chair up to “The Clapper” out of the question?
Paint an X ring on their forehead, load 5 round clip into your favorite .45, apply liberally.
Ammo, apply directly to the forehead!
Ammo, apply directly to the forehead!
Ammo, apply directly to the forehead!
They did assure us starvation was humane and painless.
Oh, there was no brain left?
Poke a hole in the base of the skull and suck it out ... I've been assured that is painless also.
Just shoot the bastard ... it only costs a half a buck.
Yeah, like hooker rape-killings they perpetrate.
Real dignified.
Guess they will have to start starving them.
As long as the prisoner doesn’t complain after its done..no problem!
I don’t hear Tookie crying.
Seal them in a shipping container and sink it off the coast of Malibu.
ROTFL!
Okey dokey...
¡Ayyyyyyyyyy, piñata!
How about them dying by the same method as their victim(s)?
That might restore some balance and deterrent to torture murders.
Just shoot the dirtbags with their “liars”.
Or turning the convicted over to the family of the victim or victims they murdered in cold blood. Being drawn and quartered could be considered as dignified by some, couldn’t it?
Reminds me of the first time I cleaned fish.
The fish in my catch were still alive and wiggling.
Thinking it too horrible to fillet them alive, I clubbed each one on the head again and again until they stopped wiggling, then I began to fillet them.
I was interrupted by a very old salt who, in a mock tone of concern, said, "Be careful--don't you go hurting them."
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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