Lethal injection ban imposed
2006-12-16 09:31
San Francisco - Botched executions in
California and Florida that required more than 30 minutes to
kill condemned prisoners prompted a moratorium of the lethal
injection procedure in both states on Friday.
Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel found California's method of
execution unconstitutional, concluding its "implementation of
lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed."
The decision follows the state's 2005 execution in which
guards failed to connect a back-up intravenous line to Stanley
"Tookie" Williams, the former Crips gang leader who garnered
global publicity after writing anti-gang books.
Then on Wednesday Florida executioners botched the
insertion of needles into condemned killer Angel Diaz, which
meant lethal chemicals did not go directly into his veins,
according to the state's medical examiner.
Florida's incoming governor, Charlie Crist, responded on
Friday by saying he would halt executions until a commission
investigated the state's procedures.
'Cruel and unusual punishment'
Death penalty opponents have for years argued that lethal
injection is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the US
Constitution, but only such recent instances have given legal
and political traction to their arguments.
"When properly administered, lethal injection results in a
death that is far kinder than that suffered by the victims of
capital crimes," said Fogel, who earlier this year visited the
death chamber at San Quentin State Prison north of San
Francisco.
"At the present time, however, defendants' implementation
of California's lethal-injection protocol lacks both
reliability and transparency," he wrote.
"In light of the substantial questions raised by the
records of previous executions, defendants' actions and
failures to act have resulted in an undue and unnecessary risk
of an Eighth Amendment violation. This is intolerable under the
Constitution."
Lethal injection is used in 37 US states, but legal
challenges have delayed such executions this year in not only
California and Florida, the first and fourth most populous
states, but several others including New Jersey and Ohio.
The United States has executed 53 people in 2006, a 10-year
low, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.