(From the latimes.com) California moved a step closer to resuming executions Thursday when corrections officials announced new lethal injection procedures, beating a May 1 deadline by one day. The proposed changes in the death chamber procedures, though mostly minor, are intended to address concerns expressed by a federal judge in 2006 that the state’s earlier three-drug sequence may have exposed some of those who were executed to unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Although the new procedures could get final approval by mid-June, executions are unlikely to resume soon because federal and state judges must first review the changes and decide whether they address the constitutional questions and procedural complaints brought by death penalty opponents. Those reviews are likely to extend at least through the end of the year, and other pending legal challenges could keep the current moratorium in effect for months or years.
Read more here: California revises execution guidelines