LESS CRUEL? To eliminate defense arguments that...

LESS CRUEL? To eliminate defense arguments that California’s gas chamber amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, the Legislature will now give Death Row defendants a choice between lethal gas or a lethal injection. While local defense attorneys agree the injection is the easier way to die, many say it sidetracks the issue. . . . Santa Ana attorney William J. Kopeny, a death penalty opponent, says: “If society needs to feel more comfortable about taking someone’s life, maybe we shouldn’t be killing these people in the first place.”