Nov. 6
The Tampa Tribune, on Florida putting off executions by lethal injection:
Even as the U.S. Supreme Court appears ready at least temporarily to put a stop to executions by lethal injection, the Florida Supreme Court ruled last week that this state's procedures are not cruel and unusual.
The Florida court's decision could clear the way for an execution at Florida State Prison near Starke 10 days from now, but inasmuch as the nation's highest court prevented an execution in Mississippi last week, the court's third stay of execution in less than a month, Florida's justices should go ahead and delay Mark Dean Schwab's date with death.
To be sure, if anyone deserves execution, it is Schwab. He was convicted of kidnapping, raping and strangling an 11-year-old boy in 1991. He's had his day in court and then some.
But there is no sense in the state getting further entangled in death-penalty hearings when a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling is forthcoming.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced in September it will review the constitutionality of Kentucky's use of the three-drug lethal injection cocktail that is similar to Florida's. Since then, there has been one execution, but in more than a dozen states, executions have been delayed.
Ironically, lethal injection became the favored process of execution after challenges to the use of the electric chair. Then last December, after it took Florida prisoner Angel Nieves Diaz 34 minutes to die, Gov. Jeb Bush placed a moratorium on executions.
Diaz took longer to die than usual because the technician improperly inserted the intravenous needle used to inject the cocktail. When the executioner administered the drugs, the chemicals traveled into Diaz's flesh instead of his bloodstream, where they would have reached his heart more quickly. Witnesses reported he appeared to grimace as if in pain.
After the ban, the governor's commission completed a review of the protocols used in lethal injection and set about trying to make sure a Diaz-type blunder does not take place again.
Among the new protocols: At least one person will be able to speak the prisoner's language and the execution team will receive extra training in the entire process.
With new protocols in place, Gov. Charlie Crist lifted the ban in July when he signed Schwab's death warrant.
The question in the courts is not whether capital punishment is cruel and unusual, but whether the method of execution is. The death penalty of one kind or another awaits Schwab no matter what the court decides.
The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection by mid-year next year. Until then, Florida should put off sending any condemned man to his eternal reward.

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