Lethal injection litigation developments

Though we'll have to wait a few months for the Supreme Court's decision in the Hill case (background here and here), there are notable developments today in other lethal injection litigation:

• From Missouri, as reported here by Decision of the Day, the Eighth Circuit has returned a lethal injection challenge to the district court for further development of the record.  The decision in Taylor v. Crawford, No. 06-1397 (8th Cir. Apr. 27, 2006) (available here), includes a express mea culpa for the way the Eighth Circuit has handled the litigation.

• From California, as reported here by the media, a "federal judge today agreed to delay until September a hearing on the constitutionality of California's lethal injection procedure.  The hearing had been scheduled for the first week of May, but today, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel acceded to the wishes of attorneys for both condemned prisoner Michael Morales and the state of California and agreed to the delay."

Meanwhile, I think the Supreme Court is still facing a lethal injection challenge from Virginia, which as of this writing is scheduled to conduct an execution on this evening at 9pm.

UPDATES:  How Appealing has assembled the local news coverage of these execution litigation delays in California and Missouri.  Meanwhile, as this article details, Virginia went forward with a lethal injection execution last night.