Morales

ORDER RE PARTIAL MOTION TO DISMISS [Doc. No. 430]

Plaintiffs are condemned prisoners whom Defendants seek to execute pursuant to California’s operative lethal-injection protocol, California Code of Regulations, title 15, sections 3349 et seq. (2010), which took effect on August 29, 2010. (See Doc. No. 432-1.) On December 15, 2006, this Court found that an earlier version of the protocol, then officially designated as San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 0-770, or OP 770, as actually applied in practice violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments,” U.S. Const. amend. VIII. Morales v. Tilton (Morales 290), 465 F.Supp.2d 972 (N.D.Cal.2006). The principal issue in the current proceedings is whether the new protocol is constitutional.

Like its several predecessors, the new protocol provides for “the injection of three drugs into a person being executed: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate sedative, to induce unconsciousness; pancuronium bromide, a neuromuscular blocking agent, to induce paralysis; and potassium chloride, to induce cardiac arrest.” Id. at 975 ; Cal.Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3349.4.5(g). Defendants have stipulated throughout these…