Prison authorities in California were on Tuesday forced to reschedule the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales after it was delayed by a disagreement with medical personnel.
The execution was called off at 2am on Tuesday, two hours after it was due to begin at San Quentin prison near San Francisco, after two anaesthesiologists who had agreed to attend the execution withdrew, citing ethical concerns.
”While we contemplated a positive role that might enable us to verify a humane execution protocol for Morales, what is being asked of us now is ethically unacceptable,” they said in a statement.
Under a federal court order issued last week the anaesthesiologists could have been obliged to intervene should Morales regain consciousness or show signs of pain.
”Any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical,” they said.
”As a result, we have withdrawn from participation in this current process.”
California state authorities rescheduled the execution for 7.30pm on Tuesday, opting for a different procedure that would not require anaesthesiologists.
The state has until midnight on Tuesday to execute Morales, who was found guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of a 17-year-old woman. The death warrant expires on Wednesday. Officials would have to go back to the original trial judge who imposed the death penalty at the 1983 trial to obtain another warrant. But that judge, Charles McGrath, has since changed his mind about the sentence, and wrote to the state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking for clemency. The request was denied.
The anaesthesiologists agreed to be present at the execution after lawyers for Morales argued that the lethal injection procedure used in California constituted ”cruel and unusual punishment”, which is banned by the US Constitution.
The debate over ”cruel and unusual punishment” came to prominence after the execution of Stanley ”Tookie” Williams in December. That procedure was marred by errors, as prison staff took 12 minutes to find a vein in his arm. – Guardian Unlimited Â