California'a Long Strange Trip With The Death Penalty

[dales]

Calif. governor drops appeal of 3-drug execution



Published 5:54 pm, Wednesday, July 10, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California prison officials said Wednesday that they are dropping the state's three-drug execution method to pursue a single-drug protocol recently adopted by other states.

A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman said the state was dropping its appeal of a court order striking down the three-drug regulation as improperly adopted.

"CDCR is not appealing the court's ruling," said agency spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman. "At the governor's direction, CDCR is continuing to develop proposed regulations for a single drug protocol in order to ensure that California's laws on capital punishment are upheld."

Several other states have turned to the single-drug execution in recent years in response to legal challenges.

Executions in California have been on hold since early 2006 when a federal judge ordered prison officials to overhaul its capital punishment procedures in response to an inmate lawsuit. Executions will remain on hold until the state officially adopts the procedure and federal courts sign off on the new method, which could take years. There are 725 inmates on California's death row.

Bet most will croak from old age before being executed. For all practical purposes there is NO DP in CA.

[Andrew D]

For all practical purposes there is NO DP in CA.

Which is, of course, a good thing.

[rubato]

I think you've got the wrong end of this one Andrew. A lotta people like a good killing; really puts the Tabasco on their eggs. And these aren't really like valuable people or anything. Even the innocent ones are pretty marginal, yer tired your poor yer huddled masses yearning to breathe free. No ones going to miss them much.

Yrs
Rubato

[dales]

For all practical purposes there is NO DP in CA.

Which is, of course, a good thing.

If one is against, capital punishment.............................yes.

[dales]

I think you've got the wrong end of this one Andrew. A lotta people like a good killing; really puts the Tabasco on their eggs. And these aren't really like valuable people or anything. Even the innocent ones are pretty marginal, yer tired your poor yer huddled masses yearning to breathe free. No ones going to miss them much.

Yrs
Rubato

Well, I'll tell ya rubes....................if Richard Allen Davis was given the needle, I wouldn't shed a tear.

If you would, you're priorities are wrong.

[rubato]

Davis was let go for a series of serious crimes by lazy DAs who let him plead to crimes just low enough to avoid serious penalty.

Had they prosecuted him for the offenses he was arrested for he would have been in prison for a long stretch rather than out preying on people.



Yrs,
Rubato

[dales]

Be that as it may, Richard Allen Davis should have been put to death years ago.

[Lord Jim]

Davis has been on death row far longer than Polly Klass got to live...

It's a disgrace...

The good news is that Brown's decision may in fact get the wheels of justice turning faster than they otherwise might have been...

I commend Brown for upholding the will of the people of California and it's legal system in this, despite his personal opposition to the DP...

I think his time as mayor of Oakland has made him far more realistic on the subject of crime and punishment then he was in his first lamentable, naive, hippy-dippy stint as governor...

Brown was pretty much a "law and order" mayor...(at least by Oakland standards, which admittedly is not a very high bar...)

[dgs49]

For those who support the rule of law, it might be noted that (a) The death penalty is constitutional, (b) the death penalty is legal in California, and (c) the death penalty is supported by a strong majority of the population.

For those who do not believe in the rule of law, e.g., the person who goes here by "Andrew D," it is just peachy that an army of liberal lawyers and judges have rendered the death penalty a nullity in that state. They believe in the rule of law, except when they disagree with it.

The "principled" approach, according to contemporary liberalism.

[Sue U]

For those who support the rule of law, it might be noted that (a) The death penalty is constitutional, (b) the death penalty is legal in California, and (c) the death penalty is supported by a strong majority of the population.

For those who do not believe in the rule of law, e.g., the person who goes here by "Andrew D," it is just peachy that an army of liberal lawyers and judges have rendered the death penalty a nullity in that state. They believe in the rule of law, except when they disagree with it.

The "principled" approach, according to contemporary liberalism.

Somebody piss in your cornflakes this (every) morning?

[Scooter]

For those who support the rule of law, it might be noted that (a) The death penalty is constitutional within the limits that have been found to be constitutional by the courts, which form an integral bulwark of the rule of law by ensuring that all other laws obey the nation's highest law (hint - it is called a "court of law" for a reason). (b) The death penalty is legal in California only to the extent that it has been judged constitutional (see (a) ). (c) The rule of law has absolutely no relationship with the popularity of this or that measure -it's the rule of law, not mob rule.

And if court rulings you don't like were the sole cause of the California moratorium, executions could have continued years ago. In 2006, a court found that having the three drug protocol carried out by someone not legally authorized to administer IV meds was an 8th Amendment violation because of the risk of agonizing death. So it was either have a medical professional overseeing all executions, or switch to a one drug protocol as several other states have done. There probably aren't two medical professionals in the entire country who would not see it as an ethical violation to assist in an execution. Sodium thiopentol would have been the likeliest choice for a single drug protocol, but the only U.S. manufacturer stopped producing it, and other countries banned its export to the U.S., because it was to be used for executions. Some states have switched to phenobarbitol, but again, the U.S. manufacturer doesn't like it and is investigating the availability of substitutes for its medical uses with an eye to halting production. There is also the question of how prisons are getting pĥarmacists to dispense the drug, if they are violating the law by dispensing without a prescription, or whether a prison doctor is risking his/her licence to practice medicine by writing the scrips on the sly.

So rail against "liberal" judges all you like, but if the people and institutions who are needed to make executions happen refuse to cooperate, what will you and that "strong majority" of true believers do about it? Are you going to compel a doctor to take a life? Are you going to nationalize a pharmaceutical company in order to make the drugs you need?

Or perhaps just lament your own impotence to do thing one about it.

[Rick]

not mob rule

Evidently (from what I have been reading here) everywhere but Oakland...

[Andrew D]

For those who support the rule of law, it might be noted that (a) The death penalty is constitutional, (b) the death penalty is legal in California, and (c) the death penalty is supported by a strong majority of the population.

For those who do not believe in the rule of law, e.g., the person who goes here by "Andrew D," it is just peachy that an army of liberal lawyers and judges have rendered the death penalty a nullity in that state. They believe in the rule of law, except when they disagree with it.

The "principled" approach, according to contemporary liberalism.

Somebody piss in your cornflakes this (every) morning?

He pisses in his own cornflakes.

Some people perk up in the morning with coffee ....