By halting the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales this week, California finds itself at the forefront of a growing debate about whether being put to death by lethal injection is more humane than other methods or in reality masks a painful end.
The question is likely to intensify in the coming months as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the issue and California reexamines its procedure after a federal judge said the method had to be modified because of concerns he had after reviewing evidence of recent executions.
More than 840 people across the nation have been executed by lethal injection in the last 30 years, but the issue of whether it violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment has only recently come to the fore.
Death penalty foes such as Century City attorney Stephen Rhode think the debate signals a critical moment in the history of capital punishment.
"They are hitting the wall in the futile search for a humane death penalty," said Rhode, vice president of Death Penalty Focus, which spearheads opposition to capital punishment in California.
Most legal analysts doubt that the Supreme Court will conclude that lethal injection violates the constitutional ban.
Joshua Marquis, an Astoria, Ore., prosecutor and vice president of the National District Attorneys Assn., likened the court challenges to a "Hail Mary" pass by a football team late in a game. But even advocates of the death penalty think that states may be required to change their procedures.
California "is legitimately criticized for not doing enough homework on the protocol," which calls for a three-drug cocktail of a sedative, a paralytic agent and a heart-stopping chemical, said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento.
The protocol was first adopted in Oklahoma in 1977, and "states just seem to copy [it] without much scientific backup for what they adopted," he said.
Scheidegger, whose organization actively defends capital punishment in major court cases, said two events in the last year have given the issue momentum: an article in a medical journal and action by the Supreme Court.
In April, the British journal Lancet published an article saying lethal injection, employed by 37 U.S. states as presumably painless, may inflict unnecessary suffering because of a routine failure to use enough anesthesia, according to a study of autopsies of executed inmates.
