Botched executions in California and Florida that required more than 30 minutes to kill condemned prisoners prompted a moratorium of the lethal injection procedure in both states on Friday.

Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel found California’s method of execution unconstitutional, concluding its “implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed.”

The decision follows the state’s 2005 execution in which guards failed to connect a back-up intravenous line to Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the former Crips gang leader who garnered global publicity after writing anti-gang books.

Then on Wednesday Florida executioners botched the insertion of needles into condemned killer Angel Diaz, which meant lethal chemicals did not go directly into his veins, according to the state’s medical examiner.

Florida’s incoming governor, Charlie Crist, responded on Friday by saying he would halt executions until a commission investigated the state’s procedures.

Death penalty opponents have for years argued that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the US Constitution, but only such recent instances have given legal and political traction to their arguments.

“When properly administered, lethal injection results in a death that is far kinder than that suffered by the victims of capital crimes,” said Fogel, who earlier this year visited the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco.