Double developments in California capital case

The Morales case in California, in which an execution is scheduled next week, continues to make headlines in two different ways:

• As detailed in this AP article, “Kenneth Starr and a Los Angeles attorney said Monday they would withdraw unreliable affidavits from jurors submitted to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of a bid to spare a murderer and rapist from execution.”  (More background is here and here on all the clemency ugliness.)

• Meanwhile, as detailed in this San Jose Mercury News article, a “federal judge in San Jose is weighing alternatives to California’s current lethal injection procedures as he nears a decision Tuesday on whether to allow the state’s next execution to proceed on Feb. 21.”  (More background is here and here on all the lethal injection litigation.)

UPDATE: Additional coverage of these developments can be found in the Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.