"Drug expiration date pushes CA execution to brink"

The title of this post is the headline of this new AP article which seeks to detail the latest execution news from California.  Here are highlights: 

Five years ago, the planned execution of Michael Morales became so chaotic and confused that California prison officials canceled it two hours before he was to die.  Now, the state's first lethal injection attempt since then is running dangerously close to another execution night mess.

The problem with Morales was a failure to find medical professionals to assist with the execution.  This time, Albert Greenwood Brown is scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Thursday — just three hours before the Friday expiration date of the state's entire supply of sodium thiopental, a sedative used to knock out inmates before they are fatally injected with two other drugs.

The issue was spotlighted late Monday, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel to reconsider his decision refusing to block the execution.  "After a four-year moratorium on executions in California, multiple proceedings in federal court, a state administrative law proceeding, and state court appeals, it is incredible to think that the deliberative process might be driven by the expiration date of the execution drug," the appeals court said....

In an apparent rush to execute Brown, the attorney general's office sought a pre-emptive order Monday from the state Supreme Court that a state appeals court ruling clearing the way for the execution would become final at 5 p.m. Thursday.  Deputy Attorney General Michael Quinn acknowledged he was seeking extraordinary relief in asking the high court to take action. But he said the impending expiration of the sodium thiopental supply left him with no alternatives if Brown is to be executed on schedule....

Even if Brown is put to death, it's unlikely any more executions will be set until next year, when officials hope to receive a new batch of the sedative. Hospira, the company that makes the drug, said it has encountered production problems and can't deliver a fresh supply until early next year....

Judge Fogel, attorneys for Brown and death penalty watchers were caught by surprise when Riverside County prosecutors — assisted by lawyers from the attorney general's office — obtained an execution date during an Aug. 30 hearing.

Riverside County prosecutors had pushed the judge for a Sept. 29 execution date with no mention of the drug expiration issue. Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said Tuesday his office was first informed this week of the issue.  "How is this possible?  This is ridiculous," said Pacheco, still optimistic the execution would proceed. "I'm a little frustrated. The death penalty in California is becoming surreal." 

Some related posts:

• Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pushes back California's execution plans slightly
• Federal ruling seems to push California toward one-drug execution protocol
• California lethal injection litigation continues as condemns refuses "unconstitutionally medieval" choice
• Latest California efforts to get back into the execution business
• Is California finally getting closer to bringing its death chamber back on line?
• "California has high hopes of reinstating death penalty"
• California legislator urging state to adopt one-drug execution protocol being used by Ohio

UPDATE:  As detailed in this new local story, headlined "San Quentin execution blocked by judge," it appears that Judge Fogel late Tuesday issued a stay that likely will prevent California from conducting any executions until 2011:

A federal judge blocked the execution of condemned murderer Albert Greenwood Brown late Tuesday, saying he needed months, not just a few days, to decide whether California's new lethal injection procedures remove the risk of a prolonged and painful death.

Brown, 56, was scheduled to be executed at 9 p.m. Thursday at San Quentin State Prison for raping and strangling 15-year-old Susan Jordan of Riverside in 1980. It was to be the state's first execution since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose found numerous flaws in the prison's injection practices.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will ask a federal appeals court to lift the stay and allow the execution, spokeswoman Rachel Arrezola said....

After hurriedly ordering and reviewing written arguments from both sides, Fogel said Tuesday evening that Brown's lawyers had raised substantial questions about whether the state's execution practices would be better than the ones he had criticized....

Unless it is overruled by a higher court, Fogel's order will halt Brown's execution and prevent any further executions in California until at least early 2011. That is when the state is due to receive a new supply of the sedative Sodium Pentothal, the sedative injected first into condemned inmates. The prisons' current supply has an expiration date of Friday, and the manufacturer says it has no more available now.