Judge Fogel will determine later today whether California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s proposition for anesthesiologist support in the Morales execution is acceptable. Yesterday, the judge ruled that it was possible that poor Morales might have to feel pain and the State had to make sure he didn’t.
Lockyer, an otherwise fiscally and politically inept media-whore politician, happens to be on the right side of this issue. He plans to have two anesthesiologists available for the execution.
Excerpt from Fox News:
California to Use Anesthesiologist to Make Sure Execution is Painless
California’s attorney general told a judge Wednesday that the state would employ an anesthesiologist to make sure a death row inmate suffers no extreme pain during execution.
To comply with Tuesday’s order by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, the anesthesiologist must determine that Michael Morales is unconscious after he’s given a sedative. Only then, under the judge’s order, can a paralyzing agent and finally a heart-stopping drug be administered.
Right: California Attorney General William Lockyear.
A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer said having the anesthesiologist present during next week’s scheduled execution is “one of the best options available.”
[ . . . ]
Also Wednesday, Morales lost another legal round to stay alive when the California Supreme Court dismissed one of his two remaining legal challenges. Without elaboration, the justices said the argument based on disputed trial testimony lacked merit.
This last issue will probably go to the Supreme Court of the US, where I doubt that it will be heard, since the testimony in question was ruled “without merit” on several occasions. Why do they keep wasting the high court’s time with this crap?