CALIFORNIA (USA): REGULATORS REJECT NEW LETHAL INJECTION METHOD

October 9, 2017:

California regulators for the second time rejected a proposed new method of carrying out the death penalty by lethal injection, another move that slows the process for California to resume executing death row inmates.
The Office of Administrative Law did not elaborate in its three-paragraph decision rejecting the rules. But officials previously said the proposal wasn’t clear on how the execution team would be selected and trained; how the drugs would be obtained and administered; and how a condemned inmate should be treated in the days and hours before the execution. Those issues were raised during the first rejection in December.
California has nearly 750 inmates on death row, but only 13 have been executed since 1978, the last in 2006. Since then, death penalty foes and supporters have engaged in a push-pull over when and how to resume executions, if at all. One of those fights is over the method of executing inmates. State and federal judges have barred the old method of using a series of three drugs, prompting the need for new rules. New regulations must be approved by state and federal judges. The regulations up for approval Monday would have allowed condemned inmates to be executed using one of two powerful barbiturates. Inmates could also choose the gas chamber.
Critics have complained that Democratic office-holders have delayed the rules for years because they are in no rush to resume executions.