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California Lethal Injection Suit Settled

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The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, after years of delay, will finally go forward to establish a new lethal injection protocol as a result of a settlement in a suit brought by CJLF.

As noted earlier on this blog (see Feb 1, Mar 5), CJLF filed a lawsuit on behalf of Bradley Winchell and Kermit Alexander, family members of murder victims, to force CDCR to move forward with a new protocol.  CDCR tried and failed to have our suit thrown out.  We have now reached a settlement.

Under the settlement, CDCR will have 120 days from the date of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Glossip v. Gross (podcast here) to draft the protocol and submit it under the state's Administrative Procedure Act.

That is not the end, but the beginning of the end.  It will be necessary to defend the new protocol through the APA process, lift the injunction in the now-moot federal court suit over the three-drug protocol, and obtain a supply of whatever drugs the new protocol requires.  Even so, we finally see a light at the end of a tunnel that has been dark for much too long.

Don Thompson has this story for AP.  Maura Dolan has this story in the LA Times.  Howard Mintz has this story in the San Jose Mercury-News.

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