Morales

Michael Angelo Morales (“Morales”) is a California death row inmate scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on February 21, 2006 at 12:01 a.m. He brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action in the United States District Court seeking to enjoin the State from executing him by lethal injection under the procedures set forth in San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 770 (“Protocol No. 770”). Specifically, Morales contended that a combination of circumstances, including the specific drugs chosen, the procedure by which the drugs are administered and the absence of medically trained personnel overseeing the execution, creates a foreseeable and undue risk that he will experience unnecessary and wanton pain constituting cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 173 , 96 S.Ct. 2909 , 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits punishments that “involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.”).

After reviewing evidence Morales presented regarding the circumstances of the 13 lethal injection executions California has carried out to date under Protocol No. 770, the district court found that Morales…