Gregory D. Lee

Despite having more inmates on death row than any other state, California hasn’t executed anyone for six years. Why? Because defense attorneys have argued that California’s three-drug lethal injection protocol is in violation of California law.

Allegedly it “is unnecessary, dangerous and creates a risk of excruciating pain” (emphasis added). Dangerous? To whom? The executioners? I thought the drugs were designed to painlessly put hideous first-degree murderers to death. The last time I checked, no one put to death by this method has come back to complain of pain. So what’s the issue?

This latest tactic by defense attorneys and anti-capital punishment advocates is to devise yet another excuse not to execute anyone in California. For the third time in the last six years, since a California court placed a moratorium on executions, the state is forced to return to the starting line and create a new lethal-injection procedure.

To show how impartial she is, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told the Los Angeles Times that the death penalty is “not effective” and needs an overhaul the state cannot afford. She’s considered a moderate Republican, as evidenced by her appointment by Arnold Schwarzenegger, voting several times in favor of overturning gay marriages, and recently performing a gay marriage ceremony.

I admire Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s concern for what California can or cannot afford, but that’s not the job of the judiciary. If she was that concerned, she’d advocate for the “50-cent solution,” a bullet in the brain of the condemned. Or, she could approve the current three-drug cocktail and make room for 720 new inmates on death row – easing prison overcrowding by executing those already condemned. Instead, death row grows longer with another death sentence to a serial killer in Los Angeles two weeks ago.

One thing the Chief Justice got right is that the death penalty isn’t effective so long as condemned prisoners can exploit the system and drag it out until their last dying natural breaths. The death penalty has lost all deterrent effect because it seems that the only approved method of execution in California is death by old age. It’s impossible to measure the effectiveness of something if it’s not in place. I suspect that the vast majority of defendants found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in California in the last six years didn’t realize there was a death penalty.

The legal arguments that the current lethal cocktail of drugs risks “excruciating pain” is simply ridiculous. It is merely another reason the public hates attorneys, and for good reason. Murder victims cannot escape “excruciating pain,” so why should the courts be concerned about the condemned? The idea that a drug designed to put you to sleep causes “excruciating pain” before another drug kills you is so nonsensical that it defies all logic. That makes as much sense as a mortician’s concern about a dead body’s bare feet being cold in a casket.

Other states like Ohio and Washington use a single drug to do the job. In a hearing in San Jose, California U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel implied with a wink and a nod to state attorneys that using the same methodology in California would eliminate any future legal challenges. Why the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation doesn’t just use this method is a mystery.

Californians will have to wait another year, at least, for the courts to resolve the issue and for the state to conduct business as usual at San Quentin’s death row.

In the meantime, more convicted murderers will be surprised to learn that California actually has a death penalty.

© 2011 North Star Writers Group

Gregory D. Lee is a retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent and lives in California. Reach him through is website: www.gregorydlee.com.

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