Court Dismisses Condemned Killer’s Legal Petitions

A condemned prisoner who murdered, raped and tortured a girl 25 years ago moved a step closer to execution Sunday when a federal appeals court dismissed petitions seeking to block his lethal injection, scheduled for Tuesday.

Barring a reprieve by the U.S. Supreme Court, where the case is to be appealed, Michael Morales, 46, would become the 14th prisoner that California has executed since voters reinstated capital punishment in 1978.

It would be the third execution at San Quentin State Prison, a few miles north of here, in less than three months, starting with the Dec. 13 death of Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams.

Condemned for killing 17-year-old Terri Winchell of Lodi, Morales and his attorneys asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to block his execution, charging that California’s three-drug death cocktail and the way it is administered amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Morales and his attorneys contended that the prisoner might feel too much pain if the sedative he is given doesn’t make him unconscious before a paralyzing agent and the final heart-stopping drugs begin coursing through his veins.

In response, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose recommended that California employ two anesthesiologists to monitor the execution. One would be in the execution chamber with Morales and another nearby to ensure that the inmate is unconscious before the two remaining drugs are injected.

Morales appealed, contending that the injection method, similar versions of which are practiced in 36 of the 38 states with capital punishment, still amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

Another petition rejected by the appeals court had the support of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles McGrath, who presided over Morales’ 1983 trial in Ventura, where it was moved from San Joaquin County.

McGrath said he no longer believed the testimony of jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson, who testified that Morales boasted of his attack and made obscene and derogatory references to Winchell. Samuelson told investigators that the two men spoke in Spanish, which Morales said he doesn’t speak.

The California Supreme Court last week rejected that challenge without comment. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in denying clemency Friday, said ample evidence supported a death sentence despite the judge’s concerns.

McGrath told the jury that the informant’s testimony, at the phase of the trial when jurors were considering a life sentence or death, “alone could be used to outweigh” all the reasons against sentencing Morales to death.