My Rant on Morales’s Execution

As many of you know, I am for the Death Penalty for the guilty. (proven beyond a reasonable doubt and by a jury of their peers) Convicted Murderer Michael Morales, 46 yrs old had a lucky day Tuesday and there has never been a question about his guilt of this horrific crime to this innocent young child.

The circumstances surrounding Morales’ scheduled execution, including first a 19-hour delay because two anesthesiologists refused to participate and then an indefinite suspension when the state couldn’t find a doctor to give the injection, have overshadowed how Morales’ young victim died 25 winters ago.

Don't forget Winchell's pain, suffering
In January 1981, Terri Lynn Winchell was an 17-year-old senior at Tokay High School in Lodi. She was a straight-A student, a member of the tennis team and a swimmer. She was a star vocalist at school, at church and in a local rock band. She was likeable, loving and innocent; and unknowingly was part of a love triangle involving two bisexual boys. When one of the boys, Ricky Ortega, became jealous of Winchell’s affection for his boyfriend, Ortega asked Morales to kill her. And Morales did so, violently, as his cousin, Ortega, watched from the front seat of his car parked along a rural Lodi road one foggy evening.

Morales tried to strangle Winchell with a belt, but when the belt broke, he struck Winchell in the head 23 times with a claw hammer. But Morales didn’t stop torturing the defenseless Winchell. After dragging her from the car into a nearby vineyard, Morales raped Winchell and stabbed her four times in the chest with a knife.

Hell Fire, I'm just going to paste the majority of the article in here. The disgust continues below:

We retell this brutality because in an effort to spare Morales from execution, his lawyers have successfully used the defense that lethal injection is a cruel and inhumane way to die. Although it has been used in executions in 38 states since first adopted in Oklahoma in 1977, the lethal injection method is the latest celebrated cause of opponents of capital punishment.

Injecting himself into the debate is controversial U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose. He ordered the state executioners to establish procedures to observe that Morales would be unconscious and not feeling pain when he was given a lethal drug cocktail intravenously by a machine or, if necessary, a single dose of barbiturates by a medical technician inside the death chamber.

Since the state couldn’t comply with the judge’s order, Fogel has scheduled a full evidentiary hearing on the constitutionality of lethal injection executions in early May.
The pain and suffering that Terri Lynn Winchell experienced during the last moments of her life make absurdities of the judge’s order and planned hearing.

It is a sad note when Morales’ suspended execution, the first court-ordered death of a San Joaquin County resident since 1962, will be remembered more for whether Morales would have felt pain when he died than for the gruesome murder he did unabashedly commit.
Source

California, home to the nation's largest death row, and could have implications for other states that use lethal injection.

The reprieve meant California, with 650 condemned inmates, awoke Wednesday to what effectively was a moratorium on executions.

The case may eventually place the issue of lethal injection before the U.S. Supreme Court. Thirty-seven of the 38 states with capital punishment use a procedure similar to California's.

The high court has yet to weigh in on a question that inmates around the country have raised in recent years: whether lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. Excerpts from the Houston Chronicle

The average death row inmate in CA is housed, fed and taken care by tax-payers’ money for an average of 25 years before they are executed. I would think for one, as far as the money goes that should be shifted to the guards, since we have an epidemic on prison escapees these days on a regular basis. However, back on subject, there are anesthesiologists volunteering right now to put these scumbags to death, but unfortunately, some think it is so cruel to give them the needle. Hummm!! What about the suffering that little Terri Winchell went through and what her parents and family are going through now? Is this suppose to be forgotten because it has been 25 years ago? I think the needle is way too easy for these killers, how about the same claw hammer (23 times) he used on Terri or maybe first start with a belt on trying to strangle him?? On then rape and stabbing?? I am sick and damn tired of the whining by these protesters against putting these bastards to sleep for good. Don’t even get me started on the “screwed-in-the-head” liberal judges that go along with this? And what is up with Ken Starr going along with it also?? So what if a needle hurts a bit, they should be happy I am not making the rules, because it definitely would hurt more than a needle.