Again we have extensive coverage of day two of the federal court hearing on California's lethal injection procedure. LA Times coverage is here.
Some condemned inmates executed by lethal injection may have been conscious when they received a drug that causes suffocation and "excruciating" sensations comparable to drowning or strangulation, an anesthesiologist who has reviewed state execution logs testified Wednesday.
Dr. Mark Heath, a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical School, said the logs showed that inmates were still breathing several minutes after prison personnel administered pancuronium bromide, a paralytic and the second of three drugs used in lethal injections in California and three dozen other states.
The inmates are supposed to be heavily sedated by the first drug against the pain of the third, a heart-stopping chemical whose effects are masked by the paralytic.
"If someone is breathing like that, they may not be in a deep plane of anesthesia. They may not even be unconscious," Heath said on the second day of a hearing on death row inmate Michael Morales' challenge to California's lethal injection procedures.
SacBee coverage is here.
Pharmacy and execution records at San Quentin State Prison fail to account for large amounts of barbiturates checked out by the lethal injection team, an expert witness testified in federal court Wednesday.
Columbia University anesthesiologist Mark Heath, testifying against California's lethal injection procedure, said the drug thiopental, which he called "addictive and pleasurable," was not being tracked effectively at the prison.
"For each execution there's 15 vials missing," he testified.
San Francisco Chronicle coverage is here.
A medical witness at a federal court hearing on California's execution procedures described a chaotic system Wednesday in which untrained employees inject unknown amounts of lethal drugs into the prisoner from a dimly lit and overcrowded chamber, with little monitoring of the chemicals' effects.
Anesthesiologist Mark Heath's testimony was the centerpiece of a constitutional challenge by lawyers for condemned murderer Michael Morales to the state's lethal injection methods. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose has blocked Morales' execution, effectively halting all executions in California, while he considers whether the procedures contain flaws that pose significant risk of causing unnecessary and extreme pain.
San Jose Mercury News coverage is here.
Heath blasted virtually every aspect of California's lethal injection procedure, from poor training of execution-team members to evidence of foul-ups in past executions. In response to questions from lawyers and a federal judge, Heath said some of the problems are ``almost hard to believe.''
Heath's testimony came in the second day of an unprecedented hearing unfolding this week in federal court in San Jose, where U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel is considering death row inmate Michael Morales' challenge to California's use of lethal injection. Morales' lawsuit maintains that the state's lethal injection method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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