Suit cites failures in Del. executions

[struggle4progress]

Attorneys: State can't be trusted to follow rules

WILMINGTON -- Arguments will be heard today in federal court in what is expected to be the last legal step before a lawsuit that has held up executions in Delaware since 2006 is dismissed ...

.. attorneys representing all of Delaware's death row inmates, from the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, are making one last argument: No matter how good the rules, Delaware can't be trusted to carry out the executions properly because it has never done so in the past.

In every one of the lethal injection executions since the death penalty was restored in 1992, the state has violated its older, and more lax, written guidelines, said attorney Michael Wiseman.

In a 31-page brief, Wiseman argues this makes Delaware significantly different than the case considered by the U.S. Supreme Court involving the state of Kentucky, in which there was little track record to evaluate. Kentucky had only one execution at that point, and no problems were reported ...

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090129/NEWS01/901290345

[jberryhill]

1. What's Capano up to these days, anyway? /nt