SAN FRANCISCO – State officials on Tuesday postponed indefinitely the execution of a condemned killer, saying they would be unable to comply with a judge’s order that a medical professional administer the lethal injection.
It was unclear when the execution would be carried out, but the delay could last for months because of legal questions surrounding California’s method of lethal injection.
Michael Morales, 46, originally was supposed to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. But the execution was put off after two anesthesiologists who were going to be present objected that they might have to advise the executioner if the inmate woke up or appeared to suffer pain.
“Any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical,” the doctors, whose identities were not released, said in a statement. “As a result, we have withdrawn from participation in this current process.”
The doctors had been brought in by a federal judge after Morales’ attorneys argued that the three-part lethal injection process violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The attorneys said a prisoner could feel excruciating pain from the last two chemicals if he were not fully sedated.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel gave prison officials a choice last week: bring in doctors to ensure Morales was properly anesthetized, or skip the usual paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs and execute him with an overdose of a sedative.
Prison officials had planned to press forward with the execution Tuesday night using the second option. The judge approved that decision, but said the sedative must be administered in the execution chamber by a person who is licensed by the state to inject medications intravenously. That group would include doctors, nurses and other medical technicians.
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