SACRAMENTO, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- California's effort to resume capital punishment was set back with a judge's ruling that the state must start over in creating new lethal injection procedures.
Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D'Opal ruled this month the state's failure to consider replacing its former multi-drug execution practice with a single-injection method violated state law and ignored the courts' and public criticism of the previous protocols. The ruling this month by means the death chamber at San Quentin will see no executions until at least well into 2013.
It is the third time in six years during which the state has observed a moratorium on execution that a judge has found the state's intended execution protocols unacceptable, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reported Monday.
The timing is significant, as there will be considerable debate on the issue and there may be a ballot measure to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Mercury News said.
California has stuck to the same three-drug cocktail to carry out its lethal injection executions without explanation and despite suggestions from judges and experts to change its formula.
Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said prison officials would not comment until they've reviewed the ruling, which can be appealed.
