California Finds Sodium Thiopental to Execute Albert Greenwood Brown – But, So?

Well, at least the State of California has found sodium thiopental to execute Albert Greenwood Brown.

Good news for those who believe in the concept “lex talionis” is bad news for Albert Greenwood Brown.

California’s prisons have located an elusive drug needed to resume executions. That is the last thing that convicted killer and rapist Albert Greenwood Brown wanted to hear.

The San Quentin inmate has had his execution on hold since Sept. 29 when a national shortage of the drug sodium thiopental forced delays in lethal injection killings across the country.

The drug is the first of three drugs administered during capital punishment sentences in California. But the country’s only domestic supplier of the drug had production problems that search state prison systems to search globally for supplies.

California’s prison department ultimately ended up giving a British company $36,415 for 521 grams of the drug that expire in 2014. Brown’s execution has been rescheduled.

But, Brown will NOT be executed anytime soon due to the anti-death penalty Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel who started the charade of the three drug cocktail “cruel and unusual punishment” argument to prevent California executions years ago.

Here is the latest on the appeals:

A federal judge in San Jose refused a state request Friday for dismissal of part of a lawsuit challenging California’s lethal injection procedures for executions.

But U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he intends to resolve the lawsuit by two death row inmates “as expeditiously as possible.” He scheduled a status conference on the case for Dec. 17.

Inmates Michael Morales and Albert Greenwood Brown, who both face death sentences for murders of teenage girls in the early 1980s, claim the state’s three-drug execution procedure carries a risk of causing unconstitutional severe pain.

The state contends that any problems were corrected in a revised lethal injection protocol completed earlier this year.

State attorneys had asked Fogel to dismiss two out of three claims in the lawsuit. The first claim is that the revised protocol is unconstitutional “on its face,” or under all circumstances. The second claim is a contention that there is a reasonable alternative to the current procedure.

The state did not seek early dismissal of a third claim that the procedure is unconstitutional when actually applied by corrections officials.

Fogel said in a 15-page ruling that lawyers for Morales and Brown had presented enough preliminary information to allow the two challenged claims to remain in the case along with the third claim. He wrote that the claims “cannot simply be dismissed as implausible.”The judge also said the inmates had presented an adequate minimum basis for arguing in later proceedings that a single-drug execution, using only the sedative sodium thiopental, might be a reasonable alternative.

Three drugs, one drug – what difference does it really make? Other states have been executing murderers for the over five years that California has been frakking around with drug cocktail combinations and drug availability.

I have to say the administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger has been diligent in pursuing the California Death Penalty Law. Read about how the California Department of Corrections secured their stash of sodium thiotental (sodium pentothal). The original ACLU document dump is here.

But, Albert Greenwood Brown will NOT be executed anytime soon – after almost 30 years of appeals. Anti-death penalty Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris were elected in November and they both will drag their feet on executing anyone.

As the Albert Greenwood Brown case languishes in the courts, the death penalty law will not be enforced in California. Moreover, I am waiting for the initiative to come before California voters to change the law using costs as the prime argument.

There will be NO justice for the victims of Albert Greenwood Brown and Michael Morales, et. al on Death Row.

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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