The Morales mess and lethal injection scrummages continue
The Morales capital case in California has been high drama with an amazing cast of characters from Ken Starr to the Terminator and every state and federal judge in between (links below provides some highlights). But today the drama has been taken to a new level after two anesthesiologists late last night refused to participate in the court-ordered lethal injection protocol because of ethical concerns.
This AP article provides perhaps the latest update, indicating that prison officials have “rescheduled the execution for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and said they would employ a different technique: administering a fatal overdose of barbiturate in lieu of the three-drug cocktail typically used in lethal injections.”
Why the rush you ask? Well: “The prison has until one minute before midnight on Tuesday to execute Morales. After that, the ‘death warrant’ expires and officials would have to go back to the trial judge who imposed the death sentence in 1983 for another warrant.”
For additional media coverage of the litigation mess over lethal injection, here is a recent newspaper article from Florida entitled, “Death row appeals over injections create legal mess.” And for additional review of the medical ethics surrounding lethal injection, check out this interesting NPR piece with Dr. Priscilla Ray of the American Medical Association’s ethics council..
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