ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union is a national organization devoted to personal freedom and social justice.

RECENT POSTS

January 27, 2011 | 11:56 AM | By

Execution drugs: New documents show delays at the FDA

CDCR

Questions over the origins and quality of execution drugs continue

For the past couple of months, the ACLU of Northern California has been pulling together public records that shed light on US states’ search for execution drugs abroad. Arizona and California both ordered the anesthetic sodium thiopental (one of three drugs used in the states’ lethal injection procedures) from a company in the United Kingdom. Going abroad for the drug was the only option for getting ahold of it at the time, these states determined, because Hospira, the sole US manufacturer of the drug–and the only one approved by the FDA–had halted production after running up against a raw materials shortage. (Now, incidentally, Hospira has said they won’t make the drug at all due to international controversy over its use in executions.) Because the drugs were brought in from abroad and because the FDA has not approved any foreign manufacturers of sodium thiopental, a lot of scrutiny has been put on the role of the FDA in sanctioning or not sanctioning these imports. In response to their role in vetting lethal injection products, the FDA said they’ve released all shipments of foreign sodium thiopental bound for California and Arizona with the following accompanying statement:

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Execution Drugs, FDA, Sodium Thiopental
January 21, 2011 | 2:36 PM | By

Execution drug discontinued as foreign batch arrives in California

CDCR

Lethal injection table at San Quentin State Prison

After unspecified “delays,” a shipment of 514.5 grams of the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental arrived at San Quentin State Prison from England today. Meanwhile, Hospira, the sole US manufacturer of the drug and the only one licensed to make it by the FDA announced that they’re completely discontinuing production of the anesthetic. Recently, following raw materials shortages, the Washington Post reports Hospira decided to move production of sodium thiopental to its factory in Italy:

“Like most other European countries, however, Italy does not have capital punishment and opposes the death penalty. Italy’s Radical Party brought a motion to Parliament, which passed overwhelmingly on Dec. 22, requiring Hospira to ensure that the drug would be used only for medical purposes and would not find its way into prisons.”

Hospira determined that there was no way they could ensure the drug wouldn’t be used in executions, and so decided to completely discontinue the drug. “Hospira has long deplored the drug’s use in executions” the WaPo reports, “but said it regretted having to stop production, because sodium thiopental has legitimate medical purposes as an anesthetic used in hospitals.” The company has continued to manufacture two other lethal injection drugs that are used in California’s three-drug procedure.

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Capital Punishment, Execution Drugs, Sodium Thiopental
January 11, 2011 | 10:17 AM | By

Executions: Who should be kept anonymous?

Steve Corey

The tradition of hiding the identities of those who carry out executions goes back centuries.

Historically, those known as “executioners” have been anonymous–both for their own safety and to maintain the idea that the state, not the person, is carrying out the punishment, but someone has to actually do it. (See movies or other depictions of hangings or beheadings–the person operating the guillotine or gallows often wears a mask.) Now that they’re called “lethal injection team members,” and they wear surgical garb to hide their identities, the tradition hasn’t changed. But it has become more complex. Who exactly counts as a participant in an execution at this point? And who deserves privacy protections? Those are questions at the heart of a current court battle over public records involving California’s acquisition of about half a kilo of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic used to knock inmates unconscious before they’re put to death. And rather than obvious, the questions are left for San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard to work out, one at a time.

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Execution Drugs, Sodium Thiopental
December 6, 2010 | 4:09 PM | By

Where California got its execution drugs

The California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation has revealed some information on the source of its recently acquired supplies of sodium thiopental, a lethal injection drug that’s been scarce nationwide.

Terry Thornton, deputy press secretary for the agency, says that California obtained 12 grams of the drug on September 30 from Arizona, which in turn, purchased the drug from a company in England. Arizona shared the drugs with California free of charge.

An additional 521 grams of the drug was ordered from Archimedes Pharma, a British company, and was expected to arrive last week. That supply cost the state $36,415 (with shipping and handling). Thornton says the shipment has cleared the Drug Enforcement Agency and customs and only awaits clearance from the Federal Drug Administration.

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Sodium Thiopental
December 2, 2010 | 1:55 PM | By

Judge: California must make execution drug records public

CDCR

There's a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, but California has managed to obtain a large supply.

On Tuesday, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charlotte Walter Woolard gave the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation one week to release documents about the source of the state’s supply of execution drugs. Currently, there’s a national shortage of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic many states use in their lethal injection process. California and other states have managed to obtain fresh supplies in recent weeks, despite the fact that the only US manufacturer of the drug (and the only maker certified by the FDA) has not made sodium thiopental since 2009, for lack  of raw materials. Some states, like Arizona, appear to be obtaining supplies from a company in Great Britain. In October, Arizona used sodium thiopental from England to execute Jeffrey Landrigan.

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FILED UNDER: Capital Punishment, Corrections, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Sodium Thiopental
November 17, 2010 | 2:10 PM | By

Why there’s a local shortage of Black and Latino jurors

Scott Jones

Where are the Black and Latino jurors?

A new report by the ACLU of Northern California has found that Alameda County’s superior court “suffers from systemic underrepresentation of African-American and Latinos in its jury pools.” In other words, there’s a big shortage of Black and Latino jurors serving on trials. The ACLU took a sampling, looking at jurors in 11 felony trials and broke down in the juror pools by race:

  • While Latinos are about 12 percent of eligible people in Alameda County to serve on trials, they represented 8 percent of the juror pool. Which means one-third of eligible Latinos are not appearing at the courthouse.
  • While African-Americans represent about 18 percent of eligible Alameda County residents, 8 percent are appearing for service–less than half of those who are eligible make the juror pool.
  • Caucasians are exactly represented in the pool according to residency and eligibility.
  • Asian-Americans are actually overrepresented–26 percent of the jury pool; 15 percent of the eligible population.

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FILED UNDER: Courts, ACLU, Alameda County Superior Court, Jury Duty
November 15, 2010 | 4:12 PM | By

ACLU sues Orange County DA over gang injunction tactics

Orange County District Attorney

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is being sued over a gang injunction filed by his office.

While gang injunctions have been spreading rapidly throughout the Bay Area in recent years, there is an effort to roll back the popular legal tool in its birthplace of Southern California. The Orange County Weekly has done an excellent job covering the story

In 2009, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas filed and won its second injunction against 115 alleged members of the Varrio Cypress gang. Community activists rallied against the injunction and challenged it in court, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California succeeding in getting five named people removed from the proposed list. 62 other names were dropped from the proposed injunction by the Orange County DA when those people showed up in court to contest their inclusion. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Community, Courts, Police, Politics, ACLU, Gang Injunctions, Orange County, Orange County District Attorney, Orange County Weekly
September 29, 2010 | 3:24 PM | By

Breaking: Attorney General will not fight stay on execution

In from the ACLU of Northern California:

“Following developments in federal and state court, the Attorney General conceded that the execution scheduled to occur at 9:00 pm on September 30 cannot go forward. This came just 30 hours before the scheduled execution. Yet legal experts had predicted for weeks that the execution would not occur due to the many remaining legal challenges and uncertainties regarding the state’s method of execution, lethal injection.”

FILED UNDER: Corrections, Courts, ACLU, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Capital Punishment, San Quentin