On Lethal Injections, What is the CDCR hiding?

In the latest chapter that is California’s broken death penalty saga, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is poised to repeat its mistakes of the past. Courts have already invalidated the CDCR’s execution protocols as constitutionally inadequate or otherwise illegal four times. 

We are now in the midst of a public comment period on the CDCR’s latest attempt at creating a lawful lethal injection protocol. The comment period was originally set to end this Friday, Jan. 22 at 5pm, culminating with a public hearing in Sacramento where members of the public could provide oral testimony.

Last Friday, however, the CDCR extended the comment period to Feb. 22 in order to comply with a Court order in an ACLU lawsuit to turn over or properly justify withholding 79,000 documents related to lethal injection. Why did we sue the CDCR? Because we believe it is in violation of the California Public Records Act by failing to release to the public documents related to lethal injection – documents that could help us and the general public evaluate the proposed regulations.

My response: What is the CDCR hiding?

To make matters worse, what the CDCR has shared during this public comment period has left us with more questions than answers and a deep-seated concern that its plan is tantamount to human experimentation. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds: two of the four drugs the CDCR wants to use to carry out lethal injections are currently unavailable and the other two (amobartial and secobarbital) have never been used in an execution. When it comes to something as serious as the death penalty, CDCR should not be charting untested waters.

But it doesn’t end there. We’re still left to wonder how the CDCR will legally obtain these drugs and why, out of all the drugs in the world, it chose these two. In the end, the regulations are not based on sound medical and scientific research.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the CDCR studied and learned from the gruesome botched executions last year in states like Arizona and Oklahoma. So it looks like the CDCR is setting us up to repeat the mistakes made in these states and to do so under a veil of secrecy.

And once again California is left with proposed regulations that are fundamentally flawed and replete with legal, ethical, constitutional, and logistical problems.

Take action

Join us in asking the state of California to hold itself to a higher standard and put an end to this wasteful system that is broken from start to finish. We’ve been down this path before, but together we can make sure this nightmare doesn’t become a reality.

Ana Zamora is the Criminal Justice Policy Director at the ACLU of Northern California.