SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on the effort to resume executions in California (all times local):
FILE – In this Dec. 12, 2005, file photo, Barbara Chan protests the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the founder of the Crips gang, outside of San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif. The battle over California’s voter-backed effort to resume executions is beginning in earnest, with state officials and death penalty supporters moving to end court orders that have blocked executions since 2006. State officials and a former NFL player whose family was murdered are asking a Marin County judge on March 28, 2018, to lift his injunction, arguing that California now has the necessary regulations switching to a single lethal dose of powerful barbiturates to execute condemned inmates. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
5:15 p.m.
An attorney for a condemned inmate in California says he does not plan to contest a judge’s tentative ruling lifting an order that had blocked the state from carrying out executions by lethal injunction.
Steve Mayer said Tuesday Marin County Superior Court Judge Roy Chernus’ decision will become final. But Mayer said it is a small part of the ongoing fight over resuming executions in the state.
Chernus said in a decision Tuesday that a 2016 ballot measure in which voters opted to resume executions invalidated his injunction. Chernus ruled in 2012 that the state failed to follow proper procedures when it set standards for conducting executions using three drugs.
A judge’s tentative rulings generally become final.
4:30 p.m.
A judge in California has tentatively decided to lift his order that had blocked the state from carrying out executions by lethal injection since 2012.
Marin County Superior Court Judge Roy Chernus said in a decision Tuesday that a 2016 ballot measure in which voters opted to resume executions invalidated his injunction. Chernus ruled in 2012 that the state failed to follow proper procedures when it set standards for conducting executions using three drugs.
Voters approved Proposition 66, however, which did away with the requirement that the state follow those procedures. Chernus said that leaves him with no choice but to lift his injunction.
The judge’s decision can still be contested, though tentative rulings generally become final. An email from The Associated Press to attorneys who argued against lifting the injunction was not immediately returned.
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12 p.m.
The battle over California’s voter-backed effort to resume executions is beginning in earnest, with state officials and death penalty supporters moving to end court orders that have blocked executions since 2006.
No executions can take place until the judges agree. A case being heard Wednesday is one of four in the courts holding up executions.
State officials and a former NFL player whose family was murdered are asking a Marin County judge to lift his injunction, arguing that California now has the necessary regulations switching to a single lethal dose of powerful barbiturates to execute condemned inmates.
The state’s execution method has been a major legal roadblock and opponents plan to fight the state’s plan in a separate federal case.
Judges previously rejected the state’s three-drug execution method.
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