A federal judge who had previously declared a moratorium on executions in California has ruled that the state's lethal injection method of execution is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in San Jose that California's "implementation of lethal injection is broken." But, he said, "it can be fixed."
That's pretty much all the details in story on CNN at the moment. I will update with more as it becomes available.
And meanwhile ... Bush halts executions in Florida.
More on the flip...
No, not that Bush, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has halted all executions after one got royally screwed up yesterday:
The execution of a convicted killer took 34 minutes -- twice as long as normal -- because officials botched the insertion of the needles that delivered the lethal chemicals, a medical examiner said Friday.
Gov. Jeb Bush responded to the findings by halting the signing of more death warrants until a commission he created to examine the state's lethal injection process completes its final report by March 1.
Dr. William Hamilton, who performed the autopsy, said the needles pierced Angel Nieves Diaz's veins and then went into soft tissue in his arms. The lethal chemicals are supposed to go directly into the veins.
Hamilton refused to say whether he thought Diaz died a painful death.
When it happened, they blamed liver disease, saying the lethal drugs were not metabolozed as quickly as usual. That explanation didn't hold water when family and health care providers said they had no knowledge of such a disease.
Tell me again why we still have the death penalty in this country?
UPDATE Kudos has more on the Florida situation here. Kudos, Kudos!
UPDATE 2 Tip of the hat to Eugene in comments for this link to San Francisco Chronicle. True, it's just the method that's been thrown out, but since that's the only method anybody has the stomach for anymore ...