The state of California wants to start putting people to death again. With this in mind, Schwarzenegger and company have filed papers with U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel outlining a new execution protocol hoping that Fogel will let the state resume…you know….killing people.
(I’m sorry, but as a lifelong opponent of capital punishment, I find I trip over the words whenever I write about this. Okay, back to the subject.)
In February of 2006, Judge Fogel halted all California executions when the lawyers of a condemned rapist and killer named Henry Morales argued that California’s lethal injection procedures constituted cruel and unusual punishment because there was the suspicion that, in many cases condemned prisoners died awake and in agony as a result of the three drug cocktail used, and the way it was administered.
[I’ve blogged in some detail on the drug issue here.]
The following were some of the other things that concerned Judge Fogel:
That the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) wasn’t using reliable staff members for executions.
Those staff weren’t properly trained and supervised.
The CDCR was bad at maintaining records.
And then there were the drugs, which Judge Fogel suggested were not consistently or properly mixed.
Now Schwarzenneger and CDCR head, James Tilton, insist all is fixed. At least they hope so.
Unfortunately they still want to use the same three drugs, including the paralytic agent that has been so controversial. (The LA Times has a fairly good write up on this part of the issue.)
Here and here are links to the text of the papers filed—which are rather interesting. (I particularly liked page 16 of the first filing)
And here’s where you can take a virtual tour of the state’s planned new death chamber, which is part of the 120 plus page proposal submitted to Judge Jeremy.
(Is it just me, or does anybody else wish the governor and company were this energetic in coming up with 120 pages of, say, sentencing reform to address California’s prison overcrowding disaster…? Or parole policy reform to help cut the state’s 70% recidivism rate? Or—let’s get really wild and crazy—how about education reform?)
In any case, we have to see if Judge Jeremy goes for the state’s new plan.
You will forgive me if I hope he doesn’t.
Capital punishment is one thing. How capital punishment is administered is another. If the injection method is a concern and people think that the execution should be fast, then just blow their heads off. Fast, painless. There, solved that.
Now, on the issue of the morality or mistakes involving capital punishment, through appeals, victims can take twenty years or more to face that fate. That should be enough time to cover doubts, but I realize that maybe it doesn’t. I don’t want any mistakes–period, but I do want justice seen for victims’ families and a deterrent to others who might consider capital crimes.
The answer requires more than a typical government report that reads like a teacher’s school plan for the year.