CALIFORNIA, USA. CALIFORNIA TURNS TO MEDICS FOR NEXT EXECUTION

February 15, 2006: California will comply with a court order and have two anesthesiologists at its next execution to make sure the prisoner is unconscious before lethal poisons are applied, officials said. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said in a court filing the anesthesiologists would be present on February 21 when Michael Morales, 46, is set to be executed at San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco.
US federal judge Jeremy Fogel has said he would stop the execution unless prison officials either made a medical expert available or altered the composition of lethal chemicals to ensure they do not inflict unnecessary pain.
Attorneys for Morales, convicted in 1983 murder and rape of a 17-year-old woman, argued that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Constitution. Morales would be the third inmate executed in California in as many months.
Fogel expressed concern that two of the three chemicals used in California that should kill within a minute, sometimes took several minutes before stopping the condemned person's heart.
"It is unclear why some inmates ... have required second doses of potassium chloride to stop promptly the beating of their hearts," Fogel wrote.
California's filing to US district court in San Jose said both anesthesiologists had asked that their identities not be made public.
In the United States, 38 states execute with lethal injection, a procedure that has faced legal challenge in a number of recent cases. To date, no court has found it cruel and unusual.
Nebraska is the only state to rely on the electric chair, but it has not been used since 1997, state corrections officials there say. In 2001, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that electrocution was cruel and unusual and ordered the use of lethal injection instead. (Sources: Reuters, 15/02/2006)