Reuters posts "Prosecutors seek to resume California executions after 6-year ban." It's by Dan Whitcomb, via the Chicago Tribune.
Los Angeles prosecutors asked a judge on Wednesday to order the execution of two condemned killers using a single drug for lethal injections, a move intended to end a 6-year hold on the death penalty in California over the method used by the state.
The move comes days after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown told prison officials to consider using the single-drug execution protocol, and ahead of a November ballot measure that seeks to repeal capital punishment in the state.
A federal judge halted all California executions in 2006 after finding that the three-drug method that has been used for lethal injections in the state carried the risk of causing the inmate too much pain and suffering before death. California revised its protocol, but an appeals court has blocked a resumption of executions over the same objections.
Motions filed by Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley's office in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday asked that the warden of San Quentin State Prison put convicted murderers Mitchell Carleton Sims and Tiequon Aundray Cox to death by the single-drug protocol or show cause why the executions cannot proceed.
Sims, 52, and Cox, 46, have both been on California's death row at San Quentin, near San Francisco, for more than a quarter century.
"It is time Sims and Cox pay for their crimes," Cooley said. "I am joining with the California District Attorney's Association and other district attorneys throughout California in asking the Superior Courts throughout the state to hold these killers responsible for the lives they took so many years ago."
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Cooley, said the district attorney had been working with prosecutors across the state for months on the strategy, and that it would soon be used against other convicted murderers in California.
"LA DA asks court to order execution of 2 inmates," is the AP filing, via the Sacramento Bee.
The county's top prosecutor is asking Los Angeles Superior Court to order the execution of two long-time Death Row inmates convicted in separate murders using a one-drug protocol adopted by other states.
In a release Wednesday, District Attorney Steve Cooley says both inmates have each been on San Quentin's Death Row 25 years.
And:
Executions in California have been on hold for years because of allegations that a three-drug execution cocktail could cause pain and suffering, but Cooley says a one-drug execution eliminates that risk.
"DA Asks Court to Order Execution of Two Death Row Inmates," is from KTLA News.
District Attorney Steve Cooley asked the Los Angeles Superior Court today to order the execution of two long-time Death Row inmates with a court-approved single-drug protocol currently used in other parts of the country.
In motions filed by Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee, the court was asked to order the executions of Mitchell Carleton Sims, 52, and Tiequon Aundray Cox, 46, each of whom have been on San Quentin?s Death Row for a quarter of a century.
Earlier coverage of California lethal injection issues begins at the link.
Comments