Lethal Injection Moratoria

Lethal Injection Moratoria

Three states, Florida, California and Maryland, have suspended the death penalty as a result of problems with lethal injection procedures that have led to botched executions.

Last Friday, following the botched lethal injection of Florida death row inmate Angel Diaz, Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions in the state pending a review by an appointed panel which will examine the state's lethal injection process. Because the chemicals used in Diaz's execution were not properly administered (as was later confirmed by an autopsy) it took 34 minutes -- more than twice the normal amount of time -- and two separate injections of lethal chemicals for Diaz to die. Witnesses to the execution said that Diaz exhibited signs of pain and suffering throughout the procedure.

On the same day that Florida suspended executions, a federal judge in California, Jeremy Fogel, issued a ruling stating that California's lethal injection protocol violated the Eight Amendment's right to protection from "cruel and unusual punishment." In his ruling, Fogel stated that California's lethal injection process "lacks reliability and transparency," and that failures to improve the procedure have resulted in "an undue and unnecessary risk of an Eighth Amendment violation" that is "intolerable under the Constitution." California has not executed anyone since last February, when Judge Fogel stopped the execution of Michael Morales and issued a moratorium on executions in the state amid concerns that inmates could suffer cruel deaths at the hands of inexperienced and under-qualified technicians operating in poorly lit, overcrowded settings.

Finally, on Tuesday, the Maryland Court of Appeals placed a moratorium on executions in the state, stating that the Maryland's protocol for lethal injections had not been properly adopted. In their decision, the Court decided in favor of attorneys for death row inmate Vernon Evans Jr. who faced execution earlier this year. The Court stated that the agencies in charge of executions in the state had implemented a "lethal injection checklist" without passing it through the necessary administrative channels, and affirmed that any new regulations must be published in the Maryland Register, submitted to a legislative committee and discussed at a public hearing.

Although the outcome of the actions of Governor Bush, Judge Fogel and the Maryland Court of Appeals remains to be seen, they could represent the beginning of a shift in how the death penalty is administered in the United States.