Morales

Habeas Corpus Resource Center, San Francisco, CA, pro se.

California Appellate Project, San Francisco, CA, pro se.

FOGEL, District Judge.

Plaintiff Michael Angelo Morales is a condemned inmate at California's San Quentin State Prison. He is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. on February 21, 2006. The present action challenges the manner in which California's lethal-injection protocol is administered. In his amended complaint, Plaintiff contends that the way in which the protocol is carried out creates an undue risk of causing him excessive pain as he is being executed, thereby violating the Eighth Amendment's command that "cruel and unusual punishments [not be] inflicted." U.S. Const. amend. VIII.

Plaintiff seeks a preliminary injunction to stay his execution so that the Court may conduct a full evidentiary hearing to consider his claims. Defendants Roderick Q. Hickman, Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and Steven W. Ornoski, Acting Warden of San Quentin State Prison, oppose the motion. The Court has read the moving and responding papers and has considered the oral arguments of counsel presented on January 26 and February 9, 2006.…