Florida not ready to halt lethal injections
Sun Sep 30, 2007 4:17PM
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September 30, 2007

Florida not ready to halt lethal injections

Benjamin Roode, Daily Commercial

Florida will not temporarily halt lethal injections after the U.S. Supreme
Court agreed to hear a case from Kentucky challenging the punishment
Tuesday.

A spokesman for Gov. Charlie Crist Friday said the governor would "not
withhold signing" any death warrants after the highest court in the land
agreed to hear the Kentucky case.

"The governor is confident in the procedures and protocols in place in
Florida to ensure a humane and dignified death," said spokesman Anthony
DeLuise.

The statement comes as legal scholars try to determine what effect the
ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court case could have on what has become the most
widely-used method of execution in the United States.

In the Kentucky case, two inmates argued lethal injections could subject the
condemned to enormous amounts of pain if the incorrect dosage of sedative
was given, according to The Associated Press. The inmate might not be able
to let executioners know the mistake if the sedative renders him or her
unconscious. Allowing the possibility of that pain makes the punishment
cruel and unusual, the suit argues.

State officials might consider temporarily halting lethal injections simply
for appearances while the U.S. Supreme Court hears the Kentucky case, said
Christopher Slobogin, law professor at the University of Florida Levin
College of Law and chairman of the American Bar Association's Florida Death
Penalty Assessment Team. The state would not have any liability if it
executed inmates with what is ruled an unconstitutional procedure after the
fact.

"There's no lawsuit there (if the supreme court finds lethal injections
unconstitutional)," he said. "On the other hand, it doesn't look very good
because Florida knows the procedure is being challenged."

Judges in death penalty cases probably will shy away from death penalties
while the high court reviews the Kentucky case even without an official
moratorium, said Inverness criminal defesne attorney Charlie Vaughn.

"Even if Crist decides not to have a moratorium, some local judges will be
less likely to hand down death penalties," he said. "I think judges want to
be safe (while the Supreme Court decides)."

Vaughn, who's represented about 35 defendants facing death penalty cases and
is currently invovled in an Ocala death penalty case, said cases with
extreme circumstances or particularly horrible killings would probably still
be open for death penalty findings by judges and juries.

No states have officially held their lethal injection executions as a result
of the Supreme Court announcement, said Richard Dieter, executive director
of the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit death penalty research
firm in Washington, D.C. Alabama officials stayed a lethal injection
execution Thursday hours before an inmate was scheduled to die, but said
they needed to implement a new lethal injection formula ordered by the
governor the day before. The U.S. Supreme Court itself stayed a Texas
execution Thursday night citing the court's decision to hear the Kentucky
case. Several other moratoriums not based on the court's decision to hear
the case exist.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush put a moratorium on lethal injection executions
in order to investigate their effectiveness after the state took more than
34 minutes to execute death row inmate Angel Diaz by injection in December
2006. Gov. Charlie Crist lifted that moratorium earlier this year when he
signed the death warrant for Mark Dean Schwab, the next-scheduled Florida
execution, slated for a Nov. 15 death.

Florida uses the same three drugs most states that perform lethal injection
executions use. States use different methods and doses of the drugs in their
executions, however, suggesting any ruling the Supreme Court makes in the
Kentucky case could apply only to that state's specific standards, Slobogin
said.

States tend to hold off on executions or any action if it's the subject of a
U.S. Supreme Court case, Dieter said. It would not be surprising to see some
states, for whatever reason, delay or completely stop lethal injections to
see what happens in Washington. Even if the ruling, whatever the outcome, is
specific to Kentucky, states might not want to take a chance executing
inmates while the method they employ is under scrutiny. The stays in Texas
and Alabama, though, suggest inklings the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling could
apply to more than just Kentucky.

"I think it will be much broader," Dieter said. "(The Texas stay) is an
indication this is a broad case."

A stay now wouldn't guarantee a stop to all Florida executions. The 384
death row inmates in the state have a choice between lethal injection and
electrocution, said Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl
Plessinger. None of the 20 death row inmates executed since the state
legislature allowed lethal injection executions in 2000 have chosen the
electric chair.

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Source : Daily Commercial

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