Death and the Natural State

This is the setup: The state of Arkansas wishes to execute eight people over the course of ten days in four doubleheaders of death overseen by a prisons regime that has never executed anyone at all, using drugs the state has never used before and have shown grotesquely problematic in neighboring Oklahoma, are about to expire, and, according to the manufacturers, do not appear to have been acquired legitimately. Rachel Maddow offered a six and a half minute overview last week.

That would have been Thursday evening. Friday and Saturday saw the whole plan come apart, with one execution stayed at least temporarily, and then a temporary restraining order against one of the intended execution drugs, compelling a federal court to halt all eight executions. This is Arkansas, though; NBC News brings the latest:

Lawyers for the Arkansas attorney general’s office worked feverishly on Saturday in an attempt to dismantle road blocks in the way of a historic spate of executions temporarily halted by court rulings.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson had ordered the execution of eight men over 10 days because one of the state’s lethal injection drugs was set to expire at the end of the month, but a series of court rulings Friday and early Saturday put that schedule in jeopardy.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge made it clear the state was unwilling to concede.

The former Land of Opportunity, naturally, is very much distressed that the courts should meddle with its opportunity excuse for homicidal spectacle.

What Jerry Decided

You know, this actually makes perfect sense. It’s a great lede, though, from the Associated Press:

Gov. Jerry Brown is allowing parole for a transgender inmate who is trying to force California to become the first state to pay for sex reassignment surgery.

Perhaps it’s the sense of dualism, and California really is running out of time. But this is a thirty year-old murder, the convict, Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, formerly Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy, was actually diagnosed with gender identity disorder in 1999, and has been receiving treatment.

A federal judge in April ordered the state to provide the surgery, which had been scheduled for July. It was delayed after the state appealed.

The governor’s office said Friday that Brown was taking no action on the Board of Parole Hearings’ recommendation to release Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, which means her parole will proceed.

The decision makes it less likely that the 51-year-old will be able to have surgery funded by the prison before she is released. Parole board spokesman Luis Patino said it usually takes about a week for an inmate to be released after the governor allows a parole to proceed.

Brown decided Norsworthy is no longer dangerous, 30 years after she fatally shot Franklin Gordon Liefer Jr., 26, following an argument in a Fullerton bar in November 1985.

And, yes, it’s going to happen anyway, for a different inmate; California agreed to provide sex reassignment surgery for Shiloh Quine, 56, a lifer.

Despite that nagging sense of either/or, this really does make perfect sense.

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Image note: Inmate Michelle-Lael Norsworthy speaks during her parole hearing at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, 21 May 2015. Gov. Jerry Brown is weighing whether to grant parole for Norsworthy, a transgender inmate who is trying to force California to become the first state to pay for a prisoner’s sex reassignment surgery. (AP Photo/Steve Yeater)

Associated Press. “Transgender Inmate Will Likely Get Parole Instead Of Court-Ordered Surgery”. The Huffington Post. 9 August 2015.