22 April 2013 :

A "highly technical issue" is currently at the heart of the appeal of a 2011 court ruling in Marin that put the death penalty on hold. Prison officials may not have adhered to "complex administrative rules" around the three-drug cocktail used in the lethal injection execution method. A 3-judge Court of Appeal panel heard arguments today, and a justice told one lawyer that "the amount of conceded mistakes here is unusual". The state was ordered in April 2006 to adopt new training methods and a new way of giving the lethal drugs. However, Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D’Opal on Dec. 16, 2011 found that the state didn't obey its own rules. The judge also found issue with California's three-drug lethal cocktail; other states use one drug.