By outlawing California’s lethal injection system Friday, Judge Jeremy Fogel struck the Northern District of California’s latest blow at the California prison system for how it treats inmates.
Already under close scrutiny by Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson for having a health care system that fails to keep inmates alive, the prison system, Fogel wrote, is failing to kill them in a humane manner. Fogel found that lethal injection may be unconstitutionally cruel as practiced by the state, indefinitely prolonging his February injunction on California executions.
