California: Federal judge set to tour new San Quentin death chamber

San Quentin's new death chamber,
"built for nearly $900,000 and designed
solely for lethal injections".

Nearly 5 years ago, a San Jose federal judge went on a highly unusual expedition to San Quentin's aging death chamber, eventually finding that the converted eerie green gas chamber was outdated and replete with potential problems for carrying out executions.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel will return to San Quentin, this time for a tour of the state's new and untested death chamber, built for nearly $900,000 and designed solely for lethal injections. With the visit, California will take a step toward resolving whether it can resume executions on a death row now brimming with nearly 720 inmates.

But it may prove to be a small step.

Major questions continue to surround the state's effort to revise its lethal injection procedures and end a court showdown that began in February 2006. Five years after giving death row inmate Michael Morales a late reprieve and putting executions on hold, Fogel still appears to have a lot of work to do before California prison officials can start escorting condemned killers into that new execution chamber.

Questions remain

California officials must show they've addressed Fogel's previous concerns that the state's execution method was "broken," from poor training of execution team members to an antiquated death chamber. The state, under orders from former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, spent years revising its lethal injection procedures -- and now Fogel is reviewing whether the state has done enough to ensure it can carry out humane executions.

The judge's latest review starts with the trip to San Quentin, where he'll be accompanied by state prison officials, lawyers and f5 news organizations, including the Mercury News. The state unveiled the new chamber last fall, hoping to rectify the problems Fogel identified in his 2006 findings.

"The tour of the chamber is still relevant," said Elisabeth Semel, head of Boalt Hall School of Law's death penalty clinic. "The question remains whether the state has answered the questions that Judge Fogel had in 2006. The questions he had "... are very much on the table."

Drug complications

While the California case is the most exhaustive to unfold in the courts, the debate over lethal injection continues to simmer across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's three-drug fatal cocktail in a major 2008 ruling that set the guidelines for lethal injection procedures, but many states continue to struggle with moving executions forward.

The issue has been complicated in the past year by the inability of states to secure a supply of sodium thiopental, the anesthesia used as the first drug in the three-drug combination used by California and most other states. The sole U.S. supplier of the drug has stopped producing it, and states such as California have gone overseas to get fresh doses, prompting critics to say they are getting the anesthesia from unreliable back-alley suppliers in Europe and putting inmates at risk of cruel executions.

California ran out of the drug on the eve of Albert Greenwood Brown's execution last fall, but has restocked through 2014 if the courts permit executions to resume.

In the meantime, Ohio and Washington have abandoned the use of three-drug combinations and sodium thiopental altogether, turning to fatal doses of pentobarbital, a surgical sedative, to carry out executions. Fogel, in evaluating California's new procedures, has hinted that may be a better option for California, but for now, state officials say the new procedure is constitutional and that executions should resume immediately.

Condemned await fate

Death penalty supporters insist California's method complies with the Supreme Court's standards. If executions resume, at least a half dozen inmates have exhausted their appeals, including condemned Santa Clara County killer David Allen Raley.

"I think we have a protocol that is constitutional," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, "and a stock of drugs to carry it out."

John Grele, a lawyer for 2 death row inmates challenging the method, said the state has not fixed its problem.

"What they did was take the old procedure and put a new label on it," he said.

As for Tuesday's trip to San Quentin, Grele added:

"We'll see when we get there. This is the 1st time we've been permitted to inspect it."

Source: Mercury News, Feb. 7, 2011

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