California officials postpone execution indefinitely

Death penalty opponents join hands in celebration outside the San Quentin State Penitentiary on Tuesday after the announcement that the execution of condemned killer Michael Morales had been postponed . PHOTO: AP

California officials indefinitely postponed the execution of a condemned killer on Tuesday because they said they were unable to comply with a federal judge's conditions for carrying out the sentence.

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on Tuesday afternoon that the state must use a single lethal dose of barbiturates -- five grams of sodium thiopental -- to kill the condemned man, Michael Morales, and that the drug must be administered by a medical technician in the death chamber.

Ordinarily, an unseen technician outside the death chamber injects a lethal three-drug potion through an intravenous line.

Earlier on Tuesday, the planned execution was halted after two anesthesiologists brought in to oversee the injection refused to participate, saying it violated medical strictures against harming patients.

State officials could not find other medical professionals to administer the lethal dose on Tuesday night under the conditions of the judge's new order, a lawyer for Morales said.

"After this new order came down, the state came back and said they couldn't comply," said John Grele, one of Morales's lawyers. "They couldn't find anyone to inject the chemicals to kill him."

Fogel will hear testimony in early May on the science and law of the single-drug method of lethal injection. It has never been used in California.

Todd Slosek, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the state delayed the execution to give all parties time to study the judge's order and to debate the means of carrying out the death penalty.

Slosek said the state did not have time before Morales's death warrant expired at midnight on Tuesday to find a technician willing to administer the lethal drugs in full view of dozens of witnesses.

"It changed the entire dynamics of the process," Slosek said.

Fogel had last week ordered the presence of the doctors to ensure that the lethal combination of drugs was administered properly and that Morales did not suffer unduly.

Physicians are present at executions in most states to certify death, but they play no direct role in the killing of the prisoner. In this case, the two doctors, whose names were not released, apparently feared that they might be called on to intervene if the procedure went awry.

"While we contemplated a positive role that might enable us to verify a humane execution protocol for Mr. Morales, what is being asked of us now is ethically unacceptable," the doctors said.