Shortly after that denial state officials also made a surprise announcement that the execution would be the last in the state until the one of the drugs proposed for his execution - sodium thiopental, a barbiturate - could be restocked by the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Details.

[This message was edited by JB on 09-28-10 at .]

I suppose the DP (as currently implemented) does somewhat depend on the pharmaceutical companies' cooperation in supplying the drugs. If they start denying anesthetic to all prisons at which the DP is imposed, then does that mean those prisoners will have no access to anesthetics at all? Different types not used in the protocol? Or be forced to go to hospitals for every minor situation in which anesthetics are required?

Or make it more reasonable to return to electrocution?

But Texas officials say they have an ample supply and would not comment further, including on how many other states have approached it hoping to obtain doses to perform executions. Texas has three executions scheduled before the end of 2010. If those take place, that would bring the annual total to 15, by far the most in the country.

Details.

After decades of appeals and reversals, the courts ultimately upheld Brown's death sentence and he was scheduled for execution Wednesday, though it was pushed back until Thursday to allow his defense team time to file more motions.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said Tuesday that he halted the Thursday execution because he didn't have enough time "to render a reasoned decision and permit adequate appellate review."

Details.

[Right, 30 years is just toooo quick.]

"James Clark, the death penalty policy coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the case demonstrates why capital punishment should be scrapped for life in prison without the possibility of parole.

He argued that if a family knows a killer is sentenced to life, the limbo of waiting for a death sentence to be carried out is eliminated.

'If Mr. Brown had been sentenced to life without parole, this ordeal would have ended 28 years ago,' when Brown was sentenced, Clark said. 'The entire death sentence process is painful for victims' families and this legal chaos just makes it worse.'

The rest of the article

This absolutely infuriates me. Don't you DARE try to use the victims' families as support for your ridiculous arguments. If you actually cared about their "ordeal", then you wouldn't be the ones using this "legal chaos" to try to extend it!

That's similar to the argument that "because I appealed and filed multiple writs and it took me 20 years to get my execution date set, that now all of a sudden it's cruel and unusual because it didn't happen fast enough and the punishment no longer bears any rational relationship to the crime." It is more infuriating - and presumptious - for them to claim they know best what is good for the victims. But we all know it's just another tactic.

Cash-Strapped Oklahoma To Conduct Executions By Hammering Squad

August 27, 2011 | ISSUE 47-34

OKLAHOMA CITY--Facing a budget shortfall, the State of Oklahoma announced Thursday it would cease to conduct capital punishment by lethal injection and would instead carry out executions by hammering squad ... click here to read the rest.

Hang 'em and leave them strung up in the hot Texas sun - they'll turn to jerky soon enough, and maybe the lions in the zoo can have a nice chew toy.......

While I have respect for those who oppose the DP on religious grounds, even though I may disagree, the rest of the anti DP lot can take their spurious sophistry elsewhere.........