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Well, there have been NO executions in California for five years. But, there are some criminals that are being sent to Death Row anyway.

California continued to buck a nationwide trend away from costly and litigious death sentences in 2010, adding 28 new prisoners to the country’s most populous death row, according to correction officials and a national database on capital punishment.

Los Angeles County alone condemned eight defendants to death this year, the same number as Texas, and Riverside County sent six men to await execution, officials said.

The state’s death chamber was idle for a fifth year, though, because of protracted legal challenges of lethal injection practices and a nationwide shortage of the key drug used in the three-injection procedure.

But, federal judge Jeremy Fogel is going to physically review California’s newly modified Death Chamber.

A federal judge who halted lethal injections in California over concerns that it was cruel and unusual punishment plans to tour the state’s new death chamber in February.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel on Wednesday told attorneys representing a death row inmate who filed a lawsuit and the state attorney general’s office that he wants to hold a hearing at San Quentin State Prison sometime in February. Fogel is determining whether the state’s new lethal injection procedure is constitutional.

Fogel halted executions in early 2006 and ordered prison officials to improve their lethal injection process. The judge was concerned that staff members were inadequately trained and the death chamber was too small and dark to properly carry out executions.

Fogel wants to view firsthand the improvements prison officials made to the death chamber since then. Fogel wants to hold the hearing and tour sometime between Feb. 2 and Feb. 9 and asked lawyers to propose a hearing date.

The attorney general’s office asked for Feb. 9 while attorneys for death row inmate Michael Morales, who filed the lawsuit that led to Fogel’s ruling, haven’t made any suggestions yet.

I don’t think Californians can look for justice and enforcement of the death penalty law anytime soon. For the past five years, Judge Fogel has used one legal excuse after another to stifle the law of California (even the U.S. Supreme Court weighed into the argument, allowing executions in other states via lethal injection).

Plus, both newly elected Governor Jerry Brown (who appointed anti-death penalty and later removed California Supreme Court Chief Justice, Rose Bird) and Attorney General Kamala Harris are personally opposed to the death penalty and despite what they say, will be in no hurry to execute Michael Angelo Morales or Albert Greenwood Brown. Look for more legal rangling after Judge Fogel visits the death chamber in February. And, then there is the Morales suit.

No justice yet for Terri Lynn Winchell.

After many days of legal maneuvers and machinations, the scheduled execution of Albert Greenwood Brown has been called off by the State of California.

State officials called off the scheduled execution of a convicted murderer Wednesday, hours after the California Supreme Court intervened in the case and made it all but impossible to carry out the death sentence.

The attorney general’s office had begun the day by asking a federal appeals court to allow the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown Jr. to proceed but later asked the court to dismiss the request. Brown had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 9  p.m. Thursday.

“A new execution date will be sought in accordance with applicable law and in conformity with all court orders,” said Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.

The high court said a separate challenge of the state’s protocol for lethal injection remains pending, and the state cannot proceed until that is resolved. That challenge was brought by other death row inmates in Marin County Superior Court.

And, since the appeal will not be decided by Friday when the sodium thiopental drug expires, California will not be able to execute Brown or any other inmate on Death row until sometime during the first quarter of 2011.

In the meantime, while the California Supreme Court was working its will, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Browm clemency.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied a request for clemency Wednesday for a convicted murderer and rapist at the center of a frenetic legal battle over whether California should resume executions after a nearly five-year gap.

Attorneys for Albert Greenwood Brown had asked the governor to reduce his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, arguing that jurors in his 1982 murder trial never heard about the full extent of the mental impairment that affected his ability to control his impulses.

But Schwarzenegger noted that other courts had reviewed the same evidence and concluded it would not have affected the outcome of Brown’s trial. In addition, the governor cited the brutality of Brown’s crime and the “overwhelming” evidence pointing to his guilt.

Brown was convicted of raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl. Prosecutors accused him of making taunting phone calls to the victim’s mother after the girl vanished.

“The guilt and aggravating evidence is overwhelming, and the mitigation evidence is just the opposite,” Schwarzenegger wrote in his clemency denial. “Brown’s jury reasonably concluded that a penalty of death was appropriate in this case, and I have no reason to disagree.”

But, alas, Brown will NOT be executed tomorrow and all of his criminal cronies at San Quentin Death Row will have another Thanksgiving and Christmas season to enjoy while the state and federal courts consider numerous appeals and the California Department of Corrections attempts to restock its stockpile of sodium thiopental.  Too bad the victims murdered by Brown and the other murderers will not receive the justice that is due them. Many of said victims have been waiting thirty years or more.

A travesty of justice.

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Shocker: Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel Stays Thursday Execution of Albert Greenwood Brown

Updated: U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Orders a New Hearing for Albert Greenwood Brown – U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel Calls for Briefs

Albert Greenwood Brown’s Execution Delayed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel Clears Path for California Executions to Resume  But Will They?

California Executions to Resume? Albert Greenwood Brown Would Be Next

California Executions May Resume By the End of 2008

Michael Morales Watch: US Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injection Executions

Michael Morales Watch: Lethal Injection Hearings Delayed Again

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Halts Construction of San Quentin Death Chamber

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: New San Quentin Death Chamber Under Construction

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: California Governor Schwarzenegger Proposes Revised 5-Point Lethal Injection Protocol

Michael Morales Watch: Judge  Jeremy Fogel Rules  California Method of Lethal Injection Violates a Constitutional Ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Postponed INDEFINITELY

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Tonight?

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Execution Delayed by Doctor Walk Out

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: United States Supreme Court Refuses to Halt Morales Execution

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency Petition

Michael Angelo Moreno Watch: State Agrees to Place Anesthesia Expert in Death Chamber

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Lawyers Withdraw Allegedly Faked Juror Statements Supporting Their Clemency Bid

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Federal Judge May Delay Execution

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Ventura County Judge Asks California Governor Schwarzenegger for Clemency

Michael Angelo Morales Watch: Kenneth Starr to Assist Death Row Clemency Bid

Not really a shocker. And, Albert Greenwood Brown will NOT be executed this week unless a federal appeals court overrules Judge Fogel.

A federal judge blocked the execution of condemned murderer Albert Greenwood Brown this evening, saying he lacked time to assess changes in California’s lethal injection procedures because the state had set the execution date so abruptly.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose had denied a stay of execution to Brown on Friday. But a federal appeals court ordered him to reconsider Monday night and decide whether the new injection procedures eliminated the risk that a prisoner would suffer a prolonged and agonizing death.

Fogel, whose 2006 ruling halted executions in California because of that risk, hurriedly ordered and reviewed written arguments from both sides Tuesday. He then said Brown had raised at least a substantial question about whether the state’s changes, adopted in response to his ruling, had solved the problems.

“The urgency of the present situation was created not by Brown, but by (the state’s) decision to seek an execution date only 30 days after the new regulations became final,” surprising both him and the inmate’s lawyers, Fogel said.

Since we know that Judge Fogel’s decisions are a charade (he is obviously obstructive to the death penalty) this is really no surprise at all. No matter what the State of California will do or how much money they will spend on correcting execution protocols, Judge Fogel will find fault. And, Jerry Brown who is the Attorney General and against the death penalty’s office is in charge of appealing Fogel’s decision to allow an execution. It appears his office is merely going through the motions. Any appeal will not be vigorously pursued.

Californians will have to wait until a federal appeals court finally orders the State of California to comply with the law.

This will not occur anytime soon.

It keeps getting better and better folks. The legal process to execute someone in California is becoming more of a joke each day.Sadly to say for the victims of these crimes.

A federal judge Tuesday morning asked the attorney general’s office and lawyers for convicted murderer Albert Greenwood Brown Jr. to file paperwork within six hours explaining whether the state should be allowed to execute Brown on Thursday.

The request came after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel to reconsider an earlier order in which he rejected Brown’s request to halt the execution.

Fogel asked the attorneys to weigh in on the state’s new procedures for carrying out lethal injections, including how similar and different they are from the older rules that Fogel previously ruled were flawed. Lawyers have until early Thursday afternoon to file their arguments.

However, time is of the essence since the expiration date for the drug sodium thiopental which the state uses for the lethal injections is Friday. And, after this date no more of this drug will be available until sometime in the first quarter of 2011.

Read on…..

Late Monday a federal appeals court has apparently stayed the planned execution of Albert Greenwood Brown who is scheduled to die at 9 PM Thursday.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco late Monday ordered a trial judge to reconsider a ruling that allowed for a convicted murderer and rapist to be executed this week at San Quentin State Prison.

Albert Greenwood Brown was scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Thursday for the 1980 killing of a 15-year-old Riverside girl.

But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel erred by offering Brown a choice of a one-drug lethal injection or a three-drug cocktail.

“The district court’s decision to provide Brown the choice of a one-drug option is not consistent with California state law and procedures. California law does not provide the condemned a choice between a three-drug protocol or a one-drug option,” the ruling said.

The appeals court ordered the judge to schedule a new hearing.

The court’s order came hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a one-day delay in Brown’s execution, citing a procedural complication in the state’s attempt to carry out its first death sentence in nearly five years.

The governor’s reprieve coincided with an announcement by the attorney general’s office that further lethal-injection sentences in California would have to wait until at least next year due to a nationwide shortage of the key drug used to render condemned prisoners unconscious.

And, now there is another impediment to California executions – the availability of the drug, sodium thiopental. How cute and convenient.

Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General who is personally opposed to the death penalty and who appointed the later recalled Rose Bird as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court who let a number of infamous criminals live when her court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional decades ago is now entrusted with enforcing the death penalty law.

Good luck with the California death penalty law being enforced with Jerry Brown as Attorney General. If Brown is elected governor in November, look for more anti-death penalty Supreme Court Justices to be appointed, as well.

Also, note the company who makes sodium thiopental is having some difficulty with its product being used for legal executions.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation “has been unable to secure sodium thiopental to perform any executions after Sept. 30,” said attorney general spokeswoman Christine Gasparac. “This office will recommend that future executions be scheduled when [the corrections department] expects the drug to be available.”

The drug manufacturer, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., blamed the shortage on a third-party supplier’s failure to provide the crucial pharmaceutical ingredient for its pentothal product. The company said it expected to have more available in the first quarter of 2011. But a spokesman also reiterated the company’s objections to their product being used in executions.

“Hospira manufactures this product because it improves or saves lives, and the company markets it solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. The drug is not indicated for capital punishment, and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure,” said spokesman Daniel Rosenberg, adding that the company informed corrections departments of its position earlier this year.

Death penalty opponents cannot change California law so they subvert the legal process to get their way.

What a travesty of justice.

There will not be any executions in California now until at least the first quarter of next year – if then.

Late Monday a federal appeals court has apparently stayed the planned execution of Albert Greenwood Brown who is scheduled to die at 9 PM Thursday.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco late Monday ordered a trial judge to reconsider a ruling that allowed for a convicted murderer and rapist to be executed this week at San Quentin State Prison.

Albert Greenwood Brown was scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Thursday for the 1980 killing of a 15-year-old Riverside girl.

But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel erred by offering Brown a choice of a one-drug lethal injection or a three-drug cocktail.

“The district court’s decision to provide Brown the choice of a one-drug option is not consistent with California state law and procedures. California law does not provide the condemned a choice between a three-drug protocol or a one-drug option,” the ruling said.

The appeals court ordered the judge to schedule a new hearing.

The court’s order came hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a one-day delay in Brown’s execution, citing a procedural complication in the state’s attempt to carry out its first death sentence in nearly five years.

The governor’s reprieve coincided with an announcement by the attorney general’s office that further lethal-injection sentences in California would have to wait until at least next year due to a nationwide shortage of the key drug used to render condemned prisoners unconscious.

And, now there is another impediment to California executions – the availability of the drug, sodium thiopental. How cute and convenient.

Jerry Brown, the California Attorney General who is personally opposed to the death penalty and who appointed the later recalled Rose Bird as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court who let a number of infamous criminals live when her court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional decades ago is now entrusted with enforcing the death penalty law.

Good luck with the California death penalty law being enforced with Jerry Brown as Attorney General. If Brown is elected governor in November, look for more anti-death penalty Supreme Court Justices to be appointed, as well.

Also, note the company who makes sodium thiopental is having some difficulty with its product being used for legal executions.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation “has been unable to secure sodium thiopental to perform any executions after Sept. 30,” said attorney general spokeswoman Christine Gasparac. “This office will recommend that future executions be scheduled when [the corrections department] expects the drug to be available.”

The drug manufacturer, Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., blamed the shortage on a third-party supplier’s failure to provide the crucial pharmaceutical ingredient for its pentothal product. The company said it expected to have more available in the first quarter of 2011. But a spokesman also reiterated the company’s objections to their product being used in executions.

“Hospira manufactures this product because it improves or saves lives, and the company markets it solely for use as indicated on the product labeling. The drug is not indicated for capital punishment, and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure,” said spokesman Daniel Rosenberg, adding that the company informed corrections departments of its position earlier this year.

Death penalty opponents cannot change California law so they subvert the legal process to get their way.

What a travesty of justice.

There will not be any executions in California now until at least the first quarter of next year – if then.