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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

California Death Row Update..................

"What-me worry?"


Well, it looks like Albert Greenwood Brown will NOT be executed this week in San Quentin's "Death Row". Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel, who has been pondering this matter for 4 years, now needs more time to ponder the matter. He has issued a stay that could drag on for months.

Of course, the hapless California State Attorney General's Office could try to get the stay overturned, however, there is the sticky matter of the fact that the sodium thiopental, one of the lethal execution drugs will expire Friday, and the state doesn't have any up-to-date supplies. (You know that medication you take that says to discard after such and such a date?) For the record, sodium thiopental is the initial drug used-to sedate the prisoner before the lethal drugs are administered. So why sedate him, you ask? Don't ask me.

And where is the attorney general, you ask? Last seen he was debating Meg Whitman last night in his race for governor. Don't forget "Run-down" Jerry Brown was a big death penalty opponent during his initial term as governor. He even appointed death penalty opponent Rose Bird to be head of the California Supreme Court. Bird found every excuse imaginable to overturn some 60 death sentences before she was recalled by an angry electorate.

Deputy Attorney General Michael Quinn has referred all inquiries to the Dept. of Corrections. The Dept. of Corrections has directed all inquiries to the Food & Drug Administration, which has.............

11 comments:

Lance Christian Johnson said...

You know, if we were like the rest of the civilized world and didn't have a death penalty, we wouldn't have these kinds of problems.

Again, I believe in the death penalty in principle. Some people absolutely deserve to die. However, I don't trust the government to handle this task, and stuff like this just helps to prove my point.

Bartender Cabbie said...

Who would you trust Lance? A lynch mob? BP?

Siarlys Jenkins said...

There goes Lance again, the Tea Party fanatic who doesn't trust the government.

The theory of using a sedative is that it is more humane to render the person to be executed unconscious, so they won't feel the pain when an actual poison is run into their veins. I think that is misplaced.

Let's stop trying to make it pretty. Execution is a death sentence. Put them in front of a firing squad and get it over with. Getting strapped down and put to sleep, knowing you will be killed once unconscious, is, as the saying goes, cruel and unusual.

If I were ever to be executed (perhaps by a post counter-revolutionary Tea Party kangaroo court) I would want to go out like Breaker Moran, shouting to the firing squad "Shoot straight you bastards, don't make a mess of it."

Angie Lee said...

Use the sodium thiopental anyhow. I read an article published by Johns Hopkins a while back that indicated MANY drugs are safe and effective - some even decades after their "expiration" date.

Findalis said...

That can and will be arranged at the time for you Siarlys.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

I'm glad that Siarlys gets the irony about my stance on the death penalty - or rather, the irony of how people who won't trust the government to run health care will trust it to carry out executions.

And BC, I wasn't aware that those were my only options.

Gary Fouse said...

Lance,

If we were like the rest of the civilized world, we wouldn't have people like Charles Manson and Albert Brown

Gary Fouse said...

Lance,

The jury got it right. Once it gets to the govt, they screw it up. What a joke!

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Gary always side-steps the hard questions.

Gary Fouse said...

"...the irony of how people who won't trust the government to run health care will trust it to carry out executions."

What execution is the government carrying out?

Gary Fouse said...

Siarlys,

What is the hard question here? I support the death penalty. I want to see Brwon executed for what he did. Is that not the thesis of my postings on this?

What is the hard question?