Hours after Louisiana conducted its first execution in eight years, a state judge on Friday dismissed a request to halt all executions in the state until the Department of Corrections changes its procedures.
Attorneys from the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, acting for condemned killer Nathaniel Code, maintained that Louisiana's guidelines for execution by a three-drug lethal injection are not specific enough.
State District Judge R. Michael Caldwell agreed with attorneys from the attorney general's office, however, and dismissed the matter, ruling that the question should have been presented under a different set of laws designed to answer prisoner complaints.
Gary Clements, Code's lead attorney, said he would appeal.
"The state just makes these rules on how they will carry the procedure out and they have not complied with any of the requirements for them."
The state procedure should specify what drugs should be used to kill the prisoner, rather than calling only for administration of drugs, Clements said.
"That ain't enough," Clements said. "They could put battery acid in the lines and he would still be dead."
Friday's hearing was purposely scheduled the day after Gerald Bordelon's execution for killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Attorneys for Bordelon had told Caldwell that he did not want anything to disrupt his execution.
The Baton Rouge Advocate has, "Suit challenging executions tossed," written by Joe Gyan.
The day after convicted murderer Gerald Bordelon was executed, a Baton Rouge judge Friday threw out a condemned killer’s lawsuit that claims Louisiana failed to follow proper administrative procedures before putting its lethal injection procedure in place.
Nathaniel Code’s suit sought to halt all executions in the state until the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections changed its procedures.
State District Judge Mike Caldwell agreed with DPSC attorneys Jeff Cody and Wade Shows that Code did not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit last month in the 19th Judicial District Court.
Attorneys for Code, who does not have a scheduled execution date, said they will ask the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal to review the judge’s ruling.
“The law is being violated. It was violated yesterday,’’ Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana director Gary Clements, who represents Code, said after court, referencing Bordelon’s execution Thursday night.
And:
Shows said the state has essentially filed a countersuit to Code’s litigation asking Caldwell to formally declare — “once and for all’’ — that the state’s lethal injection protocol is not subject to the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act.
“It means you don’t have to go through the rule-making process,’’ Shows said of the impact of such a ruling. “It’s sort of an internal management decision.’’
Caldwell did not rule on that issue Friday.
Courts in Maryland, Nebraska, California and Kentucky have found that the administrative procedures requirement applies to lethal injection, while courts in Missouri and Tennessee ruled it does not apply.
Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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