2011-12-21 The New York Times
In 2006, a federal district court ordered California to stop executing people because the state’s three-drug protocol for lethal injection lacked “reliability.” Six of the 11 men executed by lethal injection in the state since 1978 may have suffered cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Constitution because the injection inflicted “excessive pain,” Judge Jeremy Fogel found. He said the state could cure the constitutional problem by being transparent in devising a new protocol and using a one-drug, anesthetic-only method (as Ohio and Washington do).
