Federal hearing on death penalty enters third day

By Jason Bennert, Bay City News Service

September 28, 2006

SAN JOSE (BCN) - The federal judge who will decide the future of California's lethal injection procedure appears to be interested in the viability of only using a massive dose of one drug, a barbiturate, to execute condemned inmates rather than the three-drug cocktail California has used in the past.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel has been questioning witnesses throughout the four-day hearing he is holding in his San Jose courtroom on California's lethal injection procedure. This morning he asked Dr. Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist called as an expert witness by the attorneys for condemned killer Michael Morales, a hypothetical question about using only a barbiturate.

"If California were proceeding with a single drug, that is a massive dose of barbiturate, would your concerns be alleviated?" Fogel asked.

Fogel also appeared to indicate that he believed the experiences and opinions of the veterinary profession about the use of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride in the euthanasia of animals are relevant in the hearing, in contrast to the position of the attorneys representing the State of California. Those three drugs have been the ones used in California's previous lethal injection executions and, in a different formula, are what the state is proposing to use in future executions.

After Fogel finished questioning Heath, the attorneys for Morales rested and the state's attorneys began presenting their case. The hearing is scheduled to conclude on Friday.

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