“It is incredible how an abuse of human rights has to be prevented in an unusual way”, said Mario Marazziti, spokesman of Comunità di Sant’Egidio, while commenting for SIR the postponement of the execution of Michael Angelo Morales, after the refusal by two anaesthetists to assist in the inoculation of the lethal substance for ethical reasons. The execution of Morales should have taken place this morning at the prison of San Quentin, in California. “It is a sign explains Marazziti that a wider and wider range of the American population feels that death penalty is a violation of the most elementary human rights”. The presence of the anaesthetists had been asked by the lawyers defending Morales. According to the latest, the drug cocktail used to kill the prisoner through lethal injection, in California as well as in another 35 States, would breach the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, forbidding “cruel and unusual” punishments, for the two drugs in question would be very painful in absence of general anaesthetic. However, the authorities of San Quentin announced the execution through a different drug cocktail based on goofballs, at 7.30 this evening, 4.30 in the morning in Italy. Morales, 46 years old, had been condemned to death in 1983 for raping and murdering 17-year-old Terri Winchell.
