"US justices let Florida stay of execution stand," is the breaking news AP report this morning, via the Palm Beach Post.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to lift a stay of execution ordered by the Florida Supreme Court.
The federal justices Friday rejected a request by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to vacate the stay for Manuel Valle.
And:
The Florida justices, though, stayed the execution and ordered a Miami judge to hold a fact-finding hearing on a change in the state's lethal injection procedure.
That hearing begin Thursday and will continue next week.
Today's Miami Herald reports, "Lethal injection drug hearing to continue next week." It's written by Patricia Mazzei.
A hearing that began Thursday morning on the new use of an anesthetic drug in Florida’s legal injections will continue next week, after a Miami judge decided that scientists for both sides should testify in person and via video conference on Tuesday.
The hearing stems from the case of Manuel Valle, sentenced to death for shooting and killing Coral Gables Police Officer Louis Pena in 1978. Valle’s execution, initially set for Aug. 2, was temporarily stayed by the Florida Supreme Court on Monday until Sept. 1, pending a hearing on the safety and efficacy of the drug in question, pentobarbital.
The defense’s expert witness on the drug was unable to be in Miami before Tuesday, when the judge was scheduled to be on vacation. The prosecution’s expert could have testified by phone Thursday, but Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola — apparently postponing her vacation — said she would be more comfortable seeing the witness’s face by video to establish his credibility. That expert will testify Tuesday, too.
And:
Testifying for the defense, a federal public defender, described the June 16 execution in Alabama of Eddie Duval Powell. The witness, Matt Schulz, said by phone that Powell jerked up, clenched his jaw and looked confused for about a minute before passing out and later dying.
On the other side, John Harper, an employee of the Georgia Department of Corrections, described the June 23 execution in that state of Roy Blankenship — expected to come up when the defense’s expert takes the stand next week — as relatively non-eventful.
The Florida Department of Corrections signed off last month on using pentobarbital, a barbiturate, to sedate inmates before a second drug paralyzes them and a third stops their heart.
The state had to switch sedatives after the Illinois pharmaceutical company that sold it the previous drug, sodium thiopental, discontinued the production of it because it did not want the drug used in executions.
The defense on Thursday admitted into evidence four letters sent to the state by Lundbeck, the Danish company that manufactures the pentobarbital, urging Florida not to use the drug for capital punishment.
Earlier lethal injection coverage from Florida begins at the link.
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