Executions in California are effectively stopped following two anesthesiologists balking at taking a role in an execution that may have required more action than simple observation.
Based upon a ruling by Federal District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel in response to a 8th Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment claim, California could either (a) bring in doctors to ensure the prisoner had been properly anesthetized prior to injecting the paralyzing and killing agents in the standard three chemical approach, or (b) skip the usual paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs and perform the execution with an overdose of the sedative.
It was option (a) that was being attempted when the two anesthesiologists balked so California decided to switch to option (b). Fogel approved the switch BUT put the additional requirement on (b) that the sedative be administered by an individual licensed to inject medications intravenously. Only doctors, nurses and medical technicians can do that in California and the state couldn’t locate anyone that was willing to do so in order to execute a man.
What’s the start of the oath again? Oh yeah, “First, do no harm.”
If it wasn’t a matter of life and death and therefore an absolutely critically serious topic, it would begin to make Laurel and Hardy look like Shakespeare. Talk about capricious? Now folks can’t be executed in California using the same methods that Texas uses on a regular basis simply because in Texas it doesn’t involve people in the medical profession.
So effectively California now has a judicial moratorium on executions and joins Illinois, with an executive moratorium, and New Jersey, with a legislative moratorium. Well at least we’ve got all three branches of government involved.
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