California considers new lethal injection procedures, wet winter boosts LA's spider population, alternative revenue sources to the fuel tax.
California revisits lethal injection procedures after years of halted executions
California has over 700 inmates on death row, more than any state in the U.S. But despite the hundreds of prisoner sentenced to death, California hasn't executed anyone in over a decade.
All because of an investigation around the planned execution of Michael Morales in 2006. His scheduled lethal injection was halted when the state was unable to determine a lethal injection procedure that would guarantee a humane death. Since the Morales case, California has continued to pursue a revised method of execution, but to no avail.
The Morales case put a national spotlight on the high number of botched executions as well as medical evidence pointing to inhumane results through the established protocol. The three injection method used since the 1980's has the potential to induce a drawn out, painful death, surmounting in what legally constitutes as torture. A handful of other states followed California's lead and have also halted executions.
This Wednesday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is expected to release a new proposal for administering legal injections. The state will consider a single drug injection, but other the debate over the efficacy of such a method persists.
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with
. She teaches law at Fordham University and specialized in death penalty policy.
Interview Highlights
How the common, three drug lethal injection procedure may have inhumane consequences:
The typical lethal injection process is a three drug protocol. The first drug is suppose to make the inmate unconscious. The second is suppose to paralyze that inmate. And the third drug is suppose to induce cardiac arrest.
If the inmate doesn't get enough of the sedative– the drug that's suppose to make them unconscious– and they're injected with the paralytic, it can be an intensely painful process. And the inmate won't show that pain because that inmate will be paralyzed. And then they'll be induced to have cardiac arrest, and that's excruciatingly painful.
California has eliminated those last two drugs but still, their process is terribly problematic.
Why concerns remain even with the single injection method:
We know there's problems with the drugs that have been recommended. We know there's problems with the team– who is going to be implementing the process. And we know there are problems even with the training. Everything in this proposal, which I've looked at in great detail, is extremely vague. ... The parts that are most important such as where they're going to be getting the drugs aren't clear at all.
Probably every lethal injection state is having a problem getting ahold of these drugs. And the California protocol does not mention where they're going to be getting these drugs. And the source of these drugs is critically important.
*Quotes edited for clarity*
To hear the full interview with Deborah Denno, click on the on the blue Media Player above.
The Colorado River's history is wet with fighting
"There it is. Take it."
Those are the famous – or to some, infamous – words of William Mullholland when the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened over 100 years ago.
That water rushed from the Owens Valley into the San Fernando Reservoir and gave the city the life blood it needed to thrive and grow.
This same scenario, more or less, has played out in many other parts of the West like the Colorado River.
But the history of that waterway is riddled with fighting.
"There are more legal claims to water in the river than there is actual water in the river," says David Owen, author of, "Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River."
"Water lawyers in the Colorado River basin talk about 'paper water,' which is water that people have a legal claim to," he says, "and then 'wet water' which is what you and I think of as water."
Please click on the blue player to listen to the whole interview
The itsy bitsy spider explosion coming to Southern California
Earlier this month, California Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought officially over.
We've all seen the before and after pictures ...
Winter rains have replenished fallow fields ...
They've made our hillsides more verdant, giving rise to bunches of wildflowers ...
But with the extra green comes extra critters to munch on it. And the things that like to munch on those critters.
That's right, spiders.
"I expect there to be a bumper crop this year now that the drought has officially ended," says Brian Brown. He's curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
"We have a lot more plant growth so that we have a lot more insects that feed on those plants available for the spiders to eat," he continues. "We have moister conditions for the spiders to live in. Not so many of them will just desiccate and dry out because of the dry conditions."
Brown says no one knows how the drought impacted the insect kingdom, but the research community has a rough idea: less food equals fewer bugs, meaning fewer spiders. But happy days are here again for arachnids.
As the population continues to grow, those who take a moment to examine them before hitting them with the nearest object might notice that there's a newer spider in town: the brown widow.
"They are obviously new to the area. People see something, and they say 'I've never seen this kinda spider before. It looks like a black widow but it has a Caltrans orange hourglass on its underside.' That's one that we get the most calls about," Brown says.
Brown says that the brown widow came from South Africa. It thrives in the warm climate. They likely made their way here clinging to the underbelly of shipping containers.
"Spiders are great hitchhikers ... They're naturals for being distributed by human activity," Brown says.
The curator of entomology says the widows started coming to Southern California about 15 years ago, squeezing out our resident spider: the black widow. Brown widows went on to take over some of their favorite hiding spots.
"Brown widows are found under almost every piece of yard furniture in the Los Angeles area," Brian Brown says. "So if you're wondering if you have them, look under your garden chair in the back yard. If you see any webbing, you've likely got them there."
But Brown says there are two reasons why you shouldn't worry:
"Number one, we don't hear about legions of people being [bitten] by them, and that's because — number two — they're not very aggressive."
Brown says you still might want to watch where you're putting your hands when you're outside.
That is, unless you want to make a new friend.
Press the blue play button above to hear the feature.
Why taxing gas may not be enough to fix California roads
This is no secret to drivers: California's roads are falling apart.
The state legislature approved SB-1, Governor Brown's proposal for raising the gas tax to try to fix them.
But a new report released today by Beacon Economics and the nonprofit group Next 10 believes that taxing gas simply will not generate enough revenue to get the job done.
Adam Fowler is the manager of public policy research at Beacon. He spoke to Take Two's A Martinez to explain the report
On how much money the plan will generate to fulfill the needs of our roads
SB-1 is expected to bring in somewhere between $4.7 and $5.6 billion in annual revenues. this still falls short of the annual transportation revenue deficits that California's been running. Our current shortfall has been $9.8 billion each year recently. And we've also got an addition $137 billion in deferred maintenance. We've dug ourselves into quite a hole in the state, so to speak.
On another possible way to generate funds to fix the roads
One possible solution is to fund roadway repair and improvement by a system that taxes some sort of usage. The idea being drivers who use the road the most will pay the most to keep them in good shape. Other states including Oregon have been studying this as well. That early report will be released later this year.
Motor critic Sue Carpenter has been participating in a pilot program that's looking at how the mile-based tax might work. It's called The Road Charge pilot.
A meeting of the California Transportation Commission last Friday revealed early results from the pilot, which had recruited 5,000 volunteers to report the miles they drove through a variety of systems, including smart phone apps and plug-in devices. Carpenter explained some of the finding to Martinez.
"With the 5,000 vehicles the program generated about $12,000 per month. The number of miles driven by the trucks was way higher than the passengers vehicles. Trucks were just one percent of the participating vehicles but they drove eight percent of the miles.
Drivers in rural areas pay less with a road charge system, even though they drive more miles. That’s mostly because the cars they drive are less fuel-efficient.
The majority of pilot participants were satisfied with the system. And it didn’t matter what their regardless of their age was, their gender, their income, their ethnicity or where they lived.
Part of the reason they were satisfied is because they thought they'd be paying more with a mileage fee than a gas tax; most people thought they'd be paying about $40 per month but in reality they "paid" about $15. Because it’s simulated money in this thing! Participants said being charged by the mile did not affect their driving behavior at all. They didn’t drive any more or any less."
According to D'Artagnan Consulting, with all new vehicles switched to a road charge system by 2040, a road charge could bring in about 10 times as much income as a gas tax.
The Road Charge Pilot will continue with more analysis, as well as testing of a new type of tracking and payment system that would allow drivers to pay their mileage fee at the pump.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
On the Lot: Hollywood poised for writers strike, Jim Cameron's 4-part Avatar sequel
Voting ends today. Soon we'll know if members of the Writers Guild have authorized a strike if negotiators can't reach an agreement with producers. Talks are set to resume tomorrow, but Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan says it appears the two sides remain far apart over issues from health care cost to payments for work that appears on streaming services.
Although writers play a critical role in Hollywood, they know that unless they are prepared for a protracted strike - one that lasts perhaps several months - they probably won't be able to apply enough pain to get producers to bend. Scripts can be stockpiled, TV networks can fill schedules with unscripted shows, and the industry can muddle along for a good while without them. So if they decide to walk, it's a pretty good bet that many weeks will go by before any serious bargaining resumes.
While Hollywood waits to find out if there will be a work stoppage, the money keeps rolling in. The Fate of the Furious finished another weekend atop the box office here at home. But it's also burning up the road in China, earning more than $300 million.
Then, there's Avatar. It's the biggest grossing film of all time, and James Cameron has been working on a sequel for some time now. Well, make that plural. Sequels. Four of them. In typical Cameron style, he's shooting them all at once. If Cameron sticks to the schedule released over the weekend, (and he's famous for missing deadlines) they'll begin rolling out in 2020, with releases scheduled through 2025.
The Los Angeles you never hear about
Last night, our live events team launched a live personal storytelling series -- we're calling it "Unheard LA" ... Hidden stories of Southern California.
It's a brand-new, three-part series of live shows in different venues around our sprawling and too-often disconnected metropolis.
Bruce A. Lemon Jr. is the artistic director of the Watts Village Theater Company and was the host of the event. All week we'll air a segment from the event - today we featured the poem, "Where are you from?" by Eddy M. Gana Jr. and Stephanie Sajor.