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Controversy May End Calif. Executions
By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer

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Wed Feb 22, 5:18 PMUPDATED 13 HOURS 48 MINUTES AGO

SAN FRANCISCO - The state's postponement of an execution because no medical professional would take part amounts to a moratorium on capital punishment in California, home to the nation's largest death row, and could have implications for other states that use lethal injection.

Michael Morales, 46, was scheduled to die Tuesday by injection for torturing, raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl 25 years ago. But officials at San Quentin State Prison could not meet the demands of a federal judge who ordered licensed medical personnel to take part in the execution. Because of ethical considerations, there were no takers, and the execution was called off.

The reprieve meant California, with 650 condemned inmates, awoke Wednesday to what effectively was a moratorium on executions.

The case may eventually place the issue of lethal injection before the U.S. Supreme Court. Thirty-seven of the 38 states with capital punishment use a procedure similar to California's.

The high court has yet to weigh in on a question that inmates around the country have been raising in recent years: whether lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.

Last week's ruling in the Morales case by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel shifted the debate subtly to whether licensed medical personnel should play an active role in an execution, something the American Medical Association and other medical groups have long opposed on ethical grounds.

"This is an issue that is ultimately going to have to be resolved by the Supreme Court," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "Because you're ultimately not likely ever going to have doctors in the execution chamber."

In California and other states with lethal injection, licensed medical experts generally do not take part in the execution itself, other than to pronounce a prisoner dead. In California, the intravenous lines are inserted by prison staff trained specifically for that purpose. The drugs are then added by a machine.

Natasha Minsker, a capital punishment expert with the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the death penalty, said she believes a prison may be breaking the law by using executioners who do not have proper medical credentials.

"There are limits on practicing medicine with controlled substances," she said. "It appears prison personnel in this are breaking the law because they are not licensed to do this."

Fogel will hold hearings in May on whether California's method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment. Until that is resolved, neither Morales nor any other California death row inmate is likely to be executed unless licensed medical personnel step forward.

The next inmate in line, Mitchell Sims, 45, is on death row for killing a pizza delivery man in 1985. His final appeal rests with the U.S. Supreme Court. No execution date has been set.

California, like most states, carries out lethal injection with three separate drugs _ one to relax them, another to paralyze them and a third to stop their hearts.

Morales' attorneys claimed that once a sedative is given the prisoner, he may feel excruciating pain if still conscious when the paralyzing agent is administered. The federal judge, in response, ordered a licensed anesthesiologist to be on hand to ensure that wouldn't happen.

In the alternative, the judge said the prison could use just a sedative to execute the inmate, but it would have to be injected by a licensed practitioner, a group that includes doctors, nurses, dentists, paramedics and other medical technicians.

But two anesthesiologists refused to take part in Morale's execution, citing ethical concerns. And the prison could not find a medical professional willing to administer the one-drug injection.

"I have no doubt that every inmate nearing execution will glom onto this," said Kent Scheidegger, director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-capital punishment group. "But I can't imagine the Supreme Court requiring a state to do something that can't be done."

 

The Death Penalty has always been a hard one for me. Full of conflicts of emotion- and my attempt to break it down rationally to come to a determination that is based more on rational thought. Right now I am more at the stage where I ask this question of myself- How can I say definatively just what I would want as punishment for someone that has taken a friend or family member through murder. It is easy to look from outside of experience and say- yes, in all situations I would want them put to death, or- in certain mitigating circumstances I would want them to live the rest of their lives behind bars in seclusion, without any interaction with the outside world-( in the hope that the magnitude of just exactly what they have taken from their victims and family stares them in the face.) But, if this horror happened to you- what would you do, or want? With murder, there are only 2 alternatives for me, being outside of experience, death or a life of seclusion- no rehabilitation could be complete enough in one lifetime. I have both emotional, and unemotional attitudes attached to my difficulties with the administration of the death penalty. I will only list my questions that involve the rational bent, because my religious beliefs are counterproductive. Firstly, our judicial system is fallible. While the majority of inmates that do have this sentence, came of it honestly. There are a small percentage of those who have been wrongly convicted- and dna evidence has seemed to have brought this to light more than any other factor-and it gives me pause. So, should we just ignore the intrinsic problems of this system that sacrifices the few, to administer this sentence to the majority that deserve it? Is the idea of "perfect justice" merely a utopian dream, and the system we have intact the closest we can get to the ideal? Also, the statistics on just who these individuals are that encompass death row seems to be: poor, young, and minority. Does this reflect the true offendor- or  are the rich, white, and influential somehow escaping the same fate? As you can see I have a lot of questions- and this pulls me in many directions- how do you feel?