Moratoria

Since the death penalty was reinstated in Illinois in 1977, 12 men have been executed. During that same period, 13 men were freed from death row. This finding prompted the outgoing governor of Illinois, Republican George H. Ryan, who had previously ordered a moratorium on executions by the state, to commute all death penalties in his state in January 2003. When Democrat Rod Blagojevich was elected governor in 2002, one of his first acts was an attempt to revoke some of Ryan's commutations.

In addition to Ryan's moratorium, Governor Parris N. Glendening (D) halted executions in the state of Maryland by executive order on May 9, 2002, but the subsequent governor, Robert Ehrlich (R), resumed executions in 2004. However, on December 19, 2006, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that state executions would be suspended until the manual that spells out the protocol for lethal injections is reviewed by a legislative panel. The state's Department of Corrections had adopted the manual without having a public hearing or submitting it before a committee. Legislative review of the protocol is required before approval under state law.

In December 2005, the New Jersey State Senate passed a one-year moratorium on executions by the state. The measure was passed by the legislature on January 10, 2006. Governor Richard J. Codey signed the measure into law on January 12.^[56] New Jersey is the first state to pass such a moratorium legislatively, rather than by executive order. Although New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, the state has not executed anyone since 1963. On December 17, 2007, with the signing of an abolition bill by Governor Jon Corzine, New Jersey became the 14th state without a death penalty at a time when its use is declining in most of the 36 states -- plus the federal government and U.S. military -- that retain it, but the first state to abolish it by legislative action rather than by judicial decision. As a result, all eight inmates on death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison. This was upsetting to some, as the list included Jesse Timmendequas, whose rape and murder of his 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, led to the creation of Megan's Law, and many awaited his execution.

In New York, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional in June 2004, in the case of People v. LaValle.

In Florida, Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions on December 15, 2006 after a botched execution required a second injection of the lethal chemicals. The moratorium was lifted on July 18, 2007 by Governor Charlie Crist, and on November 1, 2007, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state's lethal injection procedures.

In North Carolina, a de facto moratorium is in place following a decision by the state's medical board that physicians cannot participate in executions, which is a requirement under state and federal law.

In California, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in the state of California on December 15, 2006, ruling that the implementation used in California was unconstitutional but that it could be fixed.

In Missouri, U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City suspended the state's death penalty on June 26, 2006, after lengthy hearings on the matter. Judge Gaitan reasoned that the state's lethal injection protocol did not satisfy the Eighth Amendment because (1) the written procedures for implementing lethal injections were too vague, and (2) the state had no qualified anesthesiologist to perform lethal injections. Jay Nixon, the Missouri Attorney General, promptly appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis. On June 4, 2007, a panel of the Eighth Circuit reversed the District Court's decision. The death row inmate in question, Michael Taylor, will seek an en banc hearing before the entire Eighth Circuit and, failing that, will seek a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Eighth Circuit case is number 06-3651, Taylor v. Crawford.

In Nebraska, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled, on February 8, 2008, that the use of the electric chair is unconstitutional — specifically, that its use conflicts with the Nebraska state constitution. As electrocution is the sole legally-authorized method of execution in Nebraska, the state has what technically amounts to no legally-authorized death penalty at this time.

Since the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear the case Baze v. Rees many states have slowed or halted executions as lawyers for death-row prisoners have argued that states should not carry out death sentences using a method that may be ruled unconstitutional. While executions have come to an apparent stop until Baze is examined by the court, this was not the intent, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who stated on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 that stopping all executions by that method wasn't the high court's intention when it agreed to hear Baze v. Rees. Just because the justices agreed to take on the case, Scalia said, doesn't necessarily mean that a moratorium should ensue.

On April 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Baze that the current method of execution by lethal injection, by use of a three-drug 'cocktail', is constitutionally permissible even though an alternative method such as a massive overdose of some other drug could be used and might be less painful or less uncomfortable for the condemned. As a result of the court's decision, some states that had instituted stays or moratoria have announced a resumption of the practice.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Capital Punishment in the United States ."