California took a major step Friday to clear one of two legal hurdles that have halted executions at San Quentin for more than three years.

The state posted its new lethal injection protocol for executions and opened a public comment period as required under California's Administrative Procedures Act.

A state appellate court had ordered the state to vet its revised execution protocol in accord with the procedures act. The protocol's survival of public scrutiny would eliminate one of the legal obstacles imposed by state and federal courts.

The comment period will close June 30, the same day a public hearing will be conducted by the Schwarzenegger administration.

The 42-page document unveiled Friday lays out in excruciating, chronological detail every step of the execution process, from the time a death warrant is issued to the inmate's dying breath.

San Quentin's death row, the nation's largest, houses 680 prisoners.

The moratorium began on Feb. 21, 2006, when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose stayed the execution of Michael Morales after a challenge by his attorneys to the state's lethal injection methodology.

Morales, now 49, raped and murdered 17-year-old Terri Winchell of Lodi in 1981.

In December 2006, Fogel found the state's practices in violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He cited evidence that condemned inmates are at risk of severe, unnecessary pain.

A high-powered barbiturate is supposed to anesthetize the recipient before a second drug induces paralysis and a third stops the heart. If the first drug fails – Fogel said it has – the second leaves the inmate incapable of expressing intense pain from the final one.

The judge said the state's methods were deeply flawed in a number of ways – a poorly trained staff acting with unclear instructions, keeping incomplete records, working with little supervision in a dimly lit chamber, and using drugs not properly secured.

The hiatus has continued despite the U.S. Supreme Court's April 2008 ruling in a Kentucky case that lethal injections are not inherently unconstitutional.

A task force formed by Schwarzenegger revamped execution procedures in 2007 in an effort to allay Fogel's concerns, and a new death chamber has since been constructed.

But before Fogel could review the changes, a Marin Superior Court judge ruled that the governor and corrections officials couldn't switch execution protocol without public reaction.

The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco affirmed the lower court's ruling in November, and the state chose not to seek further review.

The new protocol calls for meticulous documentation by a carefully selected team that will undergo initial and then monthly training. High security will surround access to the drugs.

After half of the anesthetic – sodium thiopental – is administered, there will be "a consciousness assessment of the inmate; the intravenous sub-team member (standing next to the inmate) shall brush the back of his/her hand over the inmate's eyelashes, and speak to and gently shake the inmate," the regulations state.

"Observations shall be documented. If the inmate is unresponsive, it will demonstrate that the inmate is unconscious."

The rest of the anesthetic will then be administered, followed by the same assessment of consciousness.

If the inmate is deemed to be unconscious, the warden will give the green light to inject the paralytic, pancuronium bromide, and the heart-stopping chemical, potassium chloride.

Even if the public evaluation of the revised protocol goes smoothly, and the state is able to convince Fogel the problems he found have been corrected, executions are unlikely to resume in the foreseeable future.

No matter how Fogel finally rules, there will be an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And, no matter which way that goes, the losing side will seek review before the Supreme Court.

Morales' attorneys say the record in the Kentucky case did not begin to approach the massive amount of evidence on lethal injection that has already been presented to Fogel by each side.

A year ago, Morales attorney David Senior cited to The Bee this excerpt from Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' concurring opinion in the Kentucky decision: "The question whether a similar three-drug protocol may be used in other states remains open, and may well be answered differently in a future case on the basis of a more complete record."

Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.