Notable state litigation over lethal injection issues

As I noted in this prior post, the Baze case could halt executions for as long as a year if the Supreme Court doesn’t issue a ruling until summer 2008, and states thereafter have to figure out exactly what the ruling means for their execution protocols.   Indeed, today brings news that two states with sizeable death rows may be still be facing lots of state litigation after Baze:

• From California, this Los Angeles Times article starts its discussion of a new state court ruling this way: “California may have to go back to the drawing board to redesign how to execute condemned inmates by lethal injection, under a tentative ruling Tuesday by a Marin County Superior Court judge.”

• From Ohio, this new AP story reports that today the Ohio Supreme Court “ruled 5-2 that Judge James Burge of Lorain County Common Pleas Court has the authority to hold hearings [on the constitutionality of Ohio’s lethal injection procedures] and to order the state to turn over documents related to the execution process.”

As I have suggested before, a state like Texas likely will find a way to get back to executions relatively quickly after a decision in Baze.  But, I would expect de facto moratoriums to persist in some other states for quite a long time.