California Execution on Hold

As a follow-up to my post from a few days ago about the legal craziness surrounding the execution of Albert Brown (scheduled for tonight), here’s an article confirming a stay of execution for Brown. This ruling — from the same judge who previously ruled that the execution could go forward despite Brown’s challenge of the method of execution — effectively puts capital punishment on hold in California (since their stock of sodium thiopental, discussed in more detail in this post, will expire today).

This ruling came about because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge to reexamine the position he took in overturning his own decision (from back in 2006) to suspend executions due to the possibility that the method would result in “severe pain” for the condemned. The judge granted a stay of execution because such a reexamination couldn’t possibly be completed before tonight’s scheduled execution.

Here are some key take-away points from the article:

Several US states have been forced to postpone executions because of a lack of the chemical, an anesthetic essential to the cocktail of lethal drugs administered to condemned inmates.

“They used the expiration date of this lethal drug as a motivator to rush forward with an execution, before resolving all the legal issues,” said Clark.

Lance Lindsey, executive director of the anti-execution group Death Penalty Focus, said the Brown case illustrated the urgency of replacing California’s “dysfunctional” death penalty system with life without possibility of parole.

“Life without parole is swift and certain punishment and by replacing the death penalty with it, we would avoid the current legal chaos and save the families of murder victims from this painful, legal rollercoaster ride,” he said.

According to Lindsey, ending the death penalty would save cash-strapped California one billion dollars in five years.

At the end of the day, all I can do is leave you with a short missive to our government: Please stop wasting people’s time, money, and lives. Feel free to pass it along.

Full article here (HT: Abraham Bonowitz).