Post by pumpkinpie on Apr 17, 2008 9:40:09 GMT -5
Justices' decision won't end debate over lethal injection in California
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/17/2008 01:30:30 AM PDT
By upholding an execution method quite similar to California's, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it much tougher for a legal challenge to lethal injection to succeed here - but death row inmates at San Quentin will not be ordering their last meals any time soon.
In a 7-2 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court in a Kentucky case demonstrated an obvious reluctance to find an execution method unconstitutional, an ominous sign for lawyers arguing that California's system - which uses the same three-drug cocktail as Kentucky - is cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court reviewed the Kentucky case in an attempt to provide guidance to California and other states on how courts should evaluate challenges to lethal injection, hoping to resolve legal chaos that had put a de facto moratorium on executions nationwide. The ruling may pave the way for executions to resume in some states, but in California, it will take longer.
Here, there has been an unprecedented exploration of the state's lethal injection process, and judges still must determine whether the state has adopted enough safeguards to ensure a humane execution. The legal issues go beyond the drugs used. The legal challenge and a federal judge's previous ruling also have cast doubt on how execution team members are trained and how the drugs are injected.
From a practical standpoint, the Supreme Court's ruling will not immediately cure the legal paralysis surrounding California's death penalty system.
A 2-year-old challenge to California's lethal injection method brought by death row inmate Michael Morales is on hold indefinitely in federal court in San Jose, in part to await the Supreme Court ruling.
In addition, a Marin County judge last year found that state prison officials broke state law in their attempt to revise California's lethal injection procedure, and that ruling is now tied up in a state appeals court in San Francisco.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel is expected to ask Morales' lawyers and the state attorney general's office to provide their views on the implications of Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling - Fogel has been following the Kentucky case so closely he took the unusual step of attending the oral arguments in the fall.
More than a year ago, Fogel warned California officials that the existing lethal injection system was so flawed that it had to be fixed or declared unconstitutional. But that was before the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's method, which uses the same fatal three-drug cocktail to execute the condemned.
California officials were quick to argue that the ruling will support their position in court. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has ordered reforms to the execution process, issued a statement saying the decision "supports California's lethal injection protocol."
But critics of the state's method say the ruling simply adds to the legal uncertainty because even some of the justices warned that it sets a standard open to interpretation in every state. Lawyers for death row inmates argue that the drug combination masks an inmate's suffering during an execution and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
"It is not really clear how the opinion is going to affect the litigation in California," said John Grele, one of Morales' lawyers. "Right now, California is trying to figure out how to enact a valid protocol in the first place."
To the surprise of few experts, the conservative Supreme Court overwhelmingly found that Kentucky's lethal injection method passes legal muster and that it would take extraordinary proof of inhumane conditions to find a similar program unconstitutional. "A condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a state's method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
But a flurry of separate opinions from other justices, including those who agreed with the outcome, is certain to provide fodder in court challenges in California and elsewhere. Only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented on the outcome. But even arch-conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia wrote separately to say the majority ruling reached the correct result, but with a soft standard that invites more litigation.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who disparaged the death penalty in a separate opinion, was more direct.
"When we granted certiorari in this case, I assumed that our decision would bring the debate about lethal injection as a method of execution to a close," he wrote. "It now seems clear that it will not."
Some legal experts consider the justices' splintered views proof that more legal wrangling will follow, in California and elsewhere. Among other things, the majority found that if states ignore alternative methods that would be more humane, they could risk violating a death row inmate's right against cruel and unusual punishment.
"The court's ruling today approves Kentucky's lethal injection procedures based upon the evidence presented, but calls into serious question the procedures in a number of other states," said Elisabeth Semel, director of the death penalty clinic at the University of California-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. "Things are still very much in flux."
www.mercurynews.com/ci_8955620?source=most_viewed
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/17/2008 01:30:30 AM PDT
By upholding an execution method quite similar to California's, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it much tougher for a legal challenge to lethal injection to succeed here - but death row inmates at San Quentin will not be ordering their last meals any time soon.
In a 7-2 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court in a Kentucky case demonstrated an obvious reluctance to find an execution method unconstitutional, an ominous sign for lawyers arguing that California's system - which uses the same three-drug cocktail as Kentucky - is cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court reviewed the Kentucky case in an attempt to provide guidance to California and other states on how courts should evaluate challenges to lethal injection, hoping to resolve legal chaos that had put a de facto moratorium on executions nationwide. The ruling may pave the way for executions to resume in some states, but in California, it will take longer.
Here, there has been an unprecedented exploration of the state's lethal injection process, and judges still must determine whether the state has adopted enough safeguards to ensure a humane execution. The legal issues go beyond the drugs used. The legal challenge and a federal judge's previous ruling also have cast doubt on how execution team members are trained and how the drugs are injected.
From a practical standpoint, the Supreme Court's ruling will not immediately cure the legal paralysis surrounding California's death penalty system.
A 2-year-old challenge to California's lethal injection method brought by death row inmate Michael Morales is on hold indefinitely in federal court in San Jose, in part to await the Supreme Court ruling.
In addition, a Marin County judge last year found that state prison officials broke state law in their attempt to revise California's lethal injection procedure, and that ruling is now tied up in a state appeals court in San Francisco.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel is expected to ask Morales' lawyers and the state attorney general's office to provide their views on the implications of Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling - Fogel has been following the Kentucky case so closely he took the unusual step of attending the oral arguments in the fall.
More than a year ago, Fogel warned California officials that the existing lethal injection system was so flawed that it had to be fixed or declared unconstitutional. But that was before the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's method, which uses the same fatal three-drug cocktail to execute the condemned.
California officials were quick to argue that the ruling will support their position in court. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has ordered reforms to the execution process, issued a statement saying the decision "supports California's lethal injection protocol."
But critics of the state's method say the ruling simply adds to the legal uncertainty because even some of the justices warned that it sets a standard open to interpretation in every state. Lawyers for death row inmates argue that the drug combination masks an inmate's suffering during an execution and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
"It is not really clear how the opinion is going to affect the litigation in California," said John Grele, one of Morales' lawyers. "Right now, California is trying to figure out how to enact a valid protocol in the first place."
To the surprise of few experts, the conservative Supreme Court overwhelmingly found that Kentucky's lethal injection method passes legal muster and that it would take extraordinary proof of inhumane conditions to find a similar program unconstitutional. "A condemned prisoner cannot successfully challenge a state's method of execution merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
But a flurry of separate opinions from other justices, including those who agreed with the outcome, is certain to provide fodder in court challenges in California and elsewhere. Only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented on the outcome. But even arch-conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia wrote separately to say the majority ruling reached the correct result, but with a soft standard that invites more litigation.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who disparaged the death penalty in a separate opinion, was more direct.
"When we granted certiorari in this case, I assumed that our decision would bring the debate about lethal injection as a method of execution to a close," he wrote. "It now seems clear that it will not."
Some legal experts consider the justices' splintered views proof that more legal wrangling will follow, in California and elsewhere. Among other things, the majority found that if states ignore alternative methods that would be more humane, they could risk violating a death row inmate's right against cruel and unusual punishment.
"The court's ruling today approves Kentucky's lethal injection procedures based upon the evidence presented, but calls into serious question the procedures in a number of other states," said Elisabeth Semel, director of the death penalty clinic at the University of California-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. "Things are still very much in flux."
www.mercurynews.com/ci_8955620?source=most_viewed