UPDATE (19:29): Back to the drawing board. Hopefully, the state will get this fixed. Unfortunately, they will now have to go back to the courts for another warrant.
Fox News reports (via AP):
Calif. Delays Execution of Killer Indefinitely
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. — The state on Tuesday postponed indefinitely the execution of a condemned killer amid a court battle over the state’s method of lethal injection and the role doctors may play in the death chamber.
State officials notified the federal courts they would be unable to comply with a judge’s order to have a medical professional administer a lethal dose of barbiturate to Michael Morales in the execution chamber, a court spokeswoman told The Associated Press.
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Morales’ execution postponed until Tuesday night – sacbee.com
SAN QUENTIN — Questions over a physician’s role in the death chamber postponed the scheduled execution early Tuesday morning of Michael Angelo Morales, the man condemned for raping and killing a Lodi girl more than two decades ago. Just before 3 a.m. Tuesday, Vernell Crittendon, spokesman for San Quentin State Prison, said the execution was rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
In an unprecedented move in California since executions resumed in 1992, an anesthesiologist was to stay with Morales to make sure the 46-year-old man was rendered and remained unconscious after the first round of drugs entered his vein in a three-chemical lethal injection process. Another anesthesiologist was also to be present, but not in the execution chamber.
But anesthesiologists scheduled to monitor the Tuesday morning execution withdrew from the process in response to language in a district court order regarding their roles.
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