On May 30, California’s First District Court of Appeals upheld a Superior Court rul­ing that found the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col invalid because the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation failed to com­ply with the require­ments of the Administrative Procedures Act. A spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said that no deci­sion has been made on whether the rul­ing will be appealed to the California Supreme Court or if the depart­ment will pro­pose a new lethal injec­tion method. California has not had an exe­cu­tion since 2006, part­ly because ques­tions relat­ed to the method of exe­cu­tion and the over­all fair­ness of the sys­tem. It has the largest death row in the coun­try, with more than 700 inmates fac­ing exe­cu­tion. The costs of the death penal­ty are also like­ly to play a promi­nent role in its future in the state. Natasha Minsker, who led efforts to repeal California’s death penal­ty in 2012, said, Any effort to resume exe­cu­tions will cost hun­dreds of thou­sands of pub­lic dol­lars and take years, with an extreme­ly lim­it­ed chance of success.”

(M. Dolan, Ruling, red tape are a set­back for California exe­cu­tions,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2013.) See Lethal Injection.

Citation Guide