The Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court ruled today that the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) must examine its lethal injection execution procedures before it carries out any death sentences, thereby halting executions in the state until such a review takes place. The ruling notes, “[B]ecause of the patent gravity of the life and death issues implicated by the regulations, we have concluded that rather than simply striking down those regulations, DOC should have the opportunity to give them further consideration, by additional hearings if necessary, and to articulate, if it is able to do so, a supporting basis for those determinations. In the meantime, however, we are satisfied that the regulations as a whole, as they now stand, may not be implemented by the carrying out of a death sentence.” The ruling may also require the DOC to release additional documents regarding the state’s lethal injection procedures to New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium, the non-profit organization that filed the original challenge to the DOC’s lethal injection procedures. Read the opinion (Feb. 20, 2004). See Methods of Execution.