First Step In Re-Establishing CA Death Penalty Cleared

A path for a first step in re-establishment of a death penalty procedure in California was cleared by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an Oklahoma case Monday.

The court by a 5-4 vote upheld the use of the sedative midazolam in lethal injection executions in Oklahoma. The sedative is the first in a three-drug series used in Oklahoma. The court majority, in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, said a group of inmates did not prove that the use of the drug is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment and did not show that there is a known and available alternative.

Executions in California have been on hold since 2006 as a result of federal and state court rulings in lawsuits challenging the state’s previous three-drug procedure. Midazolam was not one of the drugs used, but the sedative previously employed is no longer commonly available.

In 2012, the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown announced it was looking into developing a one-drug procedure.

After two families of murder victims sued the state to protest a delay in developing the new procedure, Brown’s administration agreed in a Sacramento County Superior Court settlement earlier this month that it will propose a protocol within 120 days of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Oklahoma case.

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The ruling allows that process to begin. Any new protocol proposed will be subject to public comment and could also be subject to future lawsuits.

There are currently 750 prisoners on death row in California, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The inmates’ cases are in various stages of appeal.

Rory Little, a constitutional law professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, said the decision was “just one hurdle” for reinstatement of death penalties in California. Little noted that imposition of the death penalty in the state is currently stayed by both federal trial court and appeals court orders.

The lawsuit by the murder victims’ families was filed by lawyers from the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

Foundation legal director Kent Scheidegger said in a statement, “The death penalty is supported by the vast majority of the American people. Justice in these horrible cases must not be obstructed by conspiracy to cut off the needed drugs.

“The Supreme Court affirmed today that states can take the necessary measures to defeat that obstruction of justice,” Scheidigger said of the ruling.

Cassandra Stubb, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, said in a statement, “Today’s 5-4 decision ignores the evidence and endorses a state’s right to torture people to death absent any other alternative.” Stubb said capital punishment in the United States is “unreliable and arbitrary, racially biased and geographically skewed.”

--Bay City News/Patch file photo