In district court today, Judge Jeremy Fogel, who earlier imposed a moratorium on all executions in the state, ruled that the current method of imposing the death penalty via lethal injection risks violating the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.  The judge did say that “California’s implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed.”

This is the second state in recent months to rule this particular type of lethal injection unconstitutional, joining Missouri.   In addition, this comes on the heels of a report that death penalty cases are at their lowest number in decades, 60% below its peak in 1999.

I’m wondering exactly how the situation could be fixed to minimize the amount of pain and suffering.  The issue, as I remember, is that the anaesthetic administered was not sufficient to definitively eliminate pain.

This is yet another capper on the troubled legal system in the state, including the prison overcrowding problem, where the judiciary has stepped in and demanded a fix within six months or prisoners must be released.

More as it develops.