That's the title of an editorial in today's New York Times.
In 2006, a federal district court ordered California to stop executing people because the state’s three-drug protocol for lethal injection lacked “reliability.” Six of the 11 men executed by lethal injection in the state since 1978 may have suffered cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution because the injection inflicted “excessive pain,” Judge Jeremy Fogel found. He said the state could cure the constitutional problem by being transparent in devising a new protocol and using a one-drug, anesthetic-only method (as Ohio and Washington do).
Now, five years later, a state court has ruled that California’s approach to revising the rules for lethal injection was invalid. Judge Faye D’Opal said the state flouted its own administrative law, which spells out the process that it had to follow. The process it used exemplifies California’s capital-punishment system — badly broken and in need of being permanently shut down.
And:
California’s system of government-hobbled-by-referendum means only the state’s voters can abolish the death penalty. They should stop this madness of attempting to fix something that is immoral and simply cannot be fixed.
Coverage of the California lethal injection issues begins at the link; coverage of the California ballot initiative is also available.
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