California may resume executions by year’s end

Executions in California may resume by the end of the year – with one inmate being put to death by lethal injection each month – as a result of today’s Supreme Court ruling, a high-level state prosecutor said.

Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Dane Gillette, who has defended the state’s lethal injection procedures against a federal court challenge, said he believes it is “certainly feasible” to resume executions by the end of the year.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose had ordered a temporary halt to executions in California after finding the state’s lethal injection procedures were unconstitutional. A decision by Fogel on whether a new execution protocol by the state meets constitutional requirements is pending.

A hearing in the case has been set for June, but Gillette said it may be moved up as a result of today’s high court ruling. The state plans to ask Fogel to lift his court order and permit executions to resume.

Even if Fogel rules quickly for the state, another legal challenge pending in a California appellate court will prevent the state from executing inmates immediately. Gillette said the state would press for a quick resolution in that case, which was unaffected by the Supreme Court decision.

Resuming executions this year “means a lot of things falling our way, but I think that is entirely possible,” Gillette said.

He said there are five inmates who have exhausted their appeals and could be executed once the litigation is settled.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the high court’s ruling supports the state’s case to resume executions.

“I will continue to defend the death penalty and the will of the people, and I am confident that California’s lethal injection protocol will be upheld,” Schwarzenegger said.

California’s last execution was of Clarence Allen in January 2006. A month later, state officials – in a dramatic eleventh-hour turnaround – called off the execution of Michael Morales, who had challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.

Fogel ruled in December 2006 that the state’s procedures ran an unacceptable risk of inflicting unnecessarily painful deaths, but said they could be fixed. Five months later, corrections officials, largely behind closed doors, issued a new blueprint for executions, saying the changes would “result in the dignified end of life” for condemned inmates. Morales’ lawyers said aspects of the overhaul were worse than the old procedures.

State officials last year began building a larger, better illuminated death chamber designed for lethal injection executions. Gillette said construction has been completed.

The old facility, built in 1937 as the state’s gas chamber, was criticized as dimly lit and crowded, relegating executioners outside the death room and making it difficult for them to properly monitor possible problems with the intravenous drug injections.

maura.dolan@latimes.com