Marin County Judge Lynn O'Malley Taylor issued an injunction...

Marin County Judge Lynn O'Malley Taylor issued an injunction that bars California from using a new plan to execute condemned inmates by lethal injection.
Earlier this year, the state revised how it would administer lethal injection after, on Feb. 21, 2006, a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, stopped executions in California, finding that they risked inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on death row inmates.
Judge Taylor's ruling, issued late Wednesday, held that the state broke the law by redesigning its execution procedures without seeking public comment or submitting them to review by an independent state agency.
The decision means that it could be many months before another execution occurs in California.
The Marin County case had been pending for more than a year but had drawn far less attention than the other legal challenge pending before Judge Fogel.
On December 15, 2006 (see) Fogel ruled that how California used lethal injection exposed inmates to the risk of excessive pain, in violation of the Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
After Fogel's ruling, the state drew up a new lethal injection plan, largely behind closed doors.
(as the Fogel case, see also Feb. 7, 17, 21, Apr. 21, 27, Dec. 15 2006, and May 15, June 1 and Sept. 14 2007).