Execution by Lethal Injection OKd : Capital punishment: Governor signs the bill. Wilson says it will eliminate last-minute pleas that the gas chamber is cruel and unusual punishment.

Condemned criminals in California will for the first time be able to choose lethal injection as a method of execution in place of the gas chamber under a measure signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Supporters and critics of capital punishment agree that most Death Row prisoners will probably choose death by injection rather than gas, which has been the sole means of execution in the state for 50 years.

In announcing that he had signed the statute late Thursday, Wilson made it clear that his purpose was to stop last-minute appeals by condemned prisoners who might argue that lethal gas is cruel and unusual punishment.

“Affording condemned inmates the choice of execution method will help prevent the type of last-minute legal circus we unfortunately witnessed with the Robert Alton Harris execution,” the governor said Friday.

Attorneys for Harris, the first murderer to be executed in San Quentin’s gas chamber in 25 years, failed in a last-ditch attempt to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court that the procedure was unlawful. Because of the appeal, Harris was reprieved within seconds of execution and removed from the gas chamber only to be returned two hours later, when his sentence was carried out.

Within hours of Harris’ death, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) introduced the bill that has added California to a list of 22 states that use lethal injection--either as the sole means of execution or as an alternative.

In theory, the measure removes the possibility of appeals on the issue of cruelty. If a court should invalidate use of the gas chamber, lethal injection is permitted.

There are 335 men and three women in California who have been sentenced to death. Execution dates have been set for many of these prisoners but because of the possibility of lengthy appeals it is uncertain when the next execution will take place.

The statute will go into effect Jan. 1--before the next condemned prisoner is likely to be executed, said Dave Puglia, press secretary for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who supported the measure.

Groups opposing execution by injection contend that it is intended to make a brutalizing form of punishment more acceptable and that the death penalty should be abolished.

“It is intended to put a humane face on killing, when reality is that the death penalty, capital punishment, is a barbaric practice that has no place in a civilized society,” said Pat Clark, executive director of Death Penalty Focus of California. “We object strenuously to efforts to make the death penalty more palatable to the public.”

Although Lungren and other capital punishment advocates argue that lethal injection is easier on the condemned than other forms of execution, Clark cited a study by University of Florida sociologist Michael L. Radelet that described seven “botched lethal injections” since 1985.

In most cases, medical technicians had difficulty locating a vein for injecting a series of chemicals that first anesthetize the inmate and minutes later stop the heartbeat.

However, Radelet’s study describes cases in which it has taken up to 50 minutes of poking and prodding before prison officials found a suitable vein. In other instances, the condemned prisoners had unexpectedly violent reactions to the drugs.

In arguing for his bill, McClintock said the reports of botched executions were greatly exaggerated. He noted that the first phase of the procedure used in most states is “exactly the same as general anesthesia for surgery.” It is, he said, “the only form of execution which from our own life’s experience, we can conclude is entirely devoid of discomfort.”

Critics such as Clark of Death Penalty Focus say that part of the difficulty is that doctors and nurses generally refuse to play a direct role in preparing inmates for execution.

“The American Medical Assn. and the California Medical Assn. have identical policies stating that it is unethical for a physician to participate in a legal execution other than to certify that a death has occurred,” said Roger Purdy, manager of medical ethics for the state physicians group.

But Purdy said physicians are still grappling with what it means “to participate” and some argue that serving as a witness and pronouncing death are improper roles for doctors.

San Quentin spokesman Don Lindsey said California corrections officials have been consulting with their counterparts in other states about which procedure to use. It is undetermined who will carry out the sentence for inmates choosing lethal injection.

Under the new law, all executions--whether by lethal gas or injection--will continue to be carried out at San Quentin.

The prison’s warden, Dan Vasquez, has said he is concerned that the new method could have serious psychological consequences for those who carry it out. Searching for a vein--repeatedly touching the condemned prisoner--makes the procedure much less impersonal than the gas chamber, especially when there are delays and difficulties, he told a reporter this year.

“Assemblyman McClintock should concern himself with the people who carry it out,” Vasquez said.

Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this report.