Big Death Penalty News

Wow--a federal judge in California has ruled that the state's implementation of lethal injection is cruel and unusual, and thus unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. As a result, California has extended the moratorium on executions that started with the same judge's injunction in February. It'll be interesting to see what happens when this gets kicked up to the Ninth Circuit.

Combine that with another federal judge ruling last month that Missouri's lethal injection methods are similarly unconstitutional, and Jeb Bush's moratorium on executions in Florida after a botched lethal injection this week, and it seems that we are getting slightly closer to my prediction: capital punishment will be gone from the United States in my lifetime.

Stories here and here.