USA: Lethal injection halted in California, Florida

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 (December 15). 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 (December 13) 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. Death penalty opponents have for years argued that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution, but only such recent instances have given legal and political traction to their arguments. Needles used in the execution of Angel Diaz on Wednesday punctured through both veins, allowing the chemicals to leak out and slowing their effect, the medical examiner said. "The main problem in the conduct of this execution procedure was that the fluids to be injected were not going into a vein," medical examiner William Hamilton, who performed the autopsy, told reporters in a conference call. Following the report, governor-elect Crist said when he takes office on Jan. 2 he would place a moratorium on executions in the state until a commission appointed to investigate the state's procedure completes its work. No more executions had been scheduled during the remaining term of outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush's younger brother. Lethal injection is used in 37 U.S. 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. California has long executed its worst criminals. Its famous San Quentin prison hanged the condemned starting in 1893; the state turned to lethal gas in 1938. It turned to lethal injection in 1994 after a federal judge found gassing cruel and unusual. Florida lawmakers voted to switch to lethal injection in 2000 after a series of bungled executions using the state's electric chair, including one where flames shot from a prisoner's head. Executioners now typically attach two intravenous lines to condemned U.S. inmates, one tube acting as a backup to assure a continuous flow of the three chemicals that anesthetize, paralyze and then kill. In the Williams execution, prison guards struggled for 25 minutes to insert the intravenous lines and it took another 10 minutes for the lethal drugs to take effect, said Barbara Becnel, a witness to the execution and co-author of Williams' anti-gang books. Journalists at several recent California executions have seen guards struggle to insert the IV lines to the condemned killer. Witnesses in Florida this week said Diaz appeared to grimace and gasp for breath in what was supposed to be a quick but painless procedure. Prison officials had to give Diaz the drugs twice and it took him 34 minutes to die from the start of the execution.

ITN Source | December 16, 2006

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