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Legal challenge to Washington's lethal injection methods turned away

By Douglas A. Berman

This new AP story, headlined  "Judge affirms Wash. lethal injection method," provides details on another failed challenge to a state execution protocol.  Here are th basics: A judge has affirmed Washington state's procedures for executing prisoners by lethal injection, turning aside complaints that condemned inmates could be partially conscious when fatal drugs flow into their veins. In a ruling released Friday, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham said that the inmates presented no evidence that the state "intended to impose punishment that was 'cruel.'" "The procedure to be used by defendants, although not fail-safe, appears to have been designed to administer the death penalty in a way that is humane for the inmate and the observers,"  Wickham wrote...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 10, 2009 (boomark / email).