California's last execution was in December 2005, when 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen was put to death.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel issued a ruling that led to the state's moratorium on Feb. 21, 2006, when he effectively stayed the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales. The judge ordered review of claims that the procedures violated the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Under the former as well as the pending protocols, a barbiturate is supposed to anesthetize the recipient before a second drug induces paralysis and a third stops the heart. If the first drug fails, the second would leave the inmate incapable of expressing the intense pain inflicted by the final dose.
A task force created by the governor in 2007 redrafted execution procedures to ensure proper doses and improve staff training.
But before Fogel could review the changes, Morales' attorneys brought his challenge in Marin County, where San Quentin is located.
Morales attorney Brad Phillips said he interpreted the state lawyers' change in tactics to their having "simply realized that we are right about the law."
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, criticized the state for failing to pursue the public review at the same time it appealed the state court's ruling.
"If they were going to go the administrative route, they could have started that two years ago when all this came up," said the top lawyer for the law-and-order group.
Scheidegger also said he was not optimistic that Fogel would move quickly after the state issue is resolved, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that similar protocols challenged in Kentucky met constitutional scrutiny.
"Crime victims are going to be outraged," said Nina Salarno Ashford, executive director of Crime Victims United of California. A witness to five executions who has pronounced them "humane," Ashford blamed the governor for the latest delay.
A spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, Lisa Page, would say only that the governor isn't the official state party in the case brought against the corrections department.
But Schwarzenegger has been an ardent champion of capital punishment, recently observing that he would resume executions "immediately -- yesterday," once the legal obstacles were removed.
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carol.williams@latimes.com
maura.dolan@latimes.com
