Sunday, November 28, 2010

Failed Executions


Failed executions.

I've seen this several times lately on some human rights sites that I participate in.  I'd like to know what everyone who read this thinks about it.  I'll summarize:  A condemned man in Ohio did everything he could to HELP the state executioners kill him, but they couldn't find a suitable vein to inject him with the lethal drug combo.  What to do, what to do?

Of course the death penalty is not a deterrent to anything.  If you think that it is, then congrats, I think your a fool.

The death penalty is just another cancer in our dying culture.  Does anyone ever really feel better when someone is killed by the State?  Recently, here in Texas-it's been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the State of Texas executed an innocent man named Todd Willingham.  The DA's attitude?  "He was an awful person, he beat his wife, listened to death metal, which means that he probably worshiped the devil, and he had tattoos, so it's okay."

Christian?  If you support the death penalty, then you'd best re-evaluate your religious affiliation, or just learn to read, and that will take care of that.

Thank you, have a great weekend-and remember, here in Texas, we kill people like you for no reason at all.




Botched Execution Described as ..Torture'
By Robert Mackey
Ohio Department of Correction and Rehabilitation/Associated Press An undated file photograph of Romell Broom.
Updated | Thursday On Tuesday, the execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl 25 years ago was halted after prison officials in Lucasville, Ohio, were unable to find a usable vein to administer a lethal injection. His lawyers and a campaigner against the death penalty called the failed attempt "torture."

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland granted the condemned man, Romell Broom, a one-week reprieve after being notified 90 minutes after the execution started that it had still not been completed.

Peter Krouse of The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported:

For more than two hours, the team attempted to insert two shunts into a vein of the compliant Broom, who tried several times to assist his executioners by shifting positions, rubbing his arm and pointing out possible usable veins. [...]

At one point, Broom, 53, lay back on his bed, covered his face with his hands, and cried. Another time, while sitting up, he was seen grimacing as the execution team appeared to seek a vein around his ankles.


Jon Craig and Lisa Preston of The Cincinnati Enquirer described the scene this way:

Several times, Broom rolled onto his left side, pointed at veins, straightened tubes or massaged his own arms to help prison staff keep a vein open. He was clearly frustrated as he leaned back on the gurney, covering his face with his hands and visibly crying. His stomach heaved upward and his feet twitched. There is no audio from the holding cell, so reporters could only watch his movements. When the staff tried to put IVs in his legs, Broom looked up toward the camera above, appearing to grimace, at least four times, from pain.

As Broom's anxiety grew, he repeatedly wiped his sweaty forehead with toilet paper.

National Public Radio published an interview with Associated Press reporter Stephen Majors, who witnessed the failed execution, on its Web site.

Kathleen Soltis, chairwoman of the Cleveland Coalition Against the Death Penalty, told The Plain Dealer: "The sentence is death, not torture plus death."

As my colleague Bob Driehaus reported:

Mr. Broom was convicted of the 1984 abduction, rape and killing of Tryna Middleton, 14, who had been walking home from a football game in Cleveland with two friends.

His lawyers described what happened Tuesday as torture and said they would try to block the execution. One of them, Adele Shank, said: "He survived this execution attempt, and they really can't do it again. It was cruel and unusual punishment."

Carrie Davis of The American Civil Liberties Union said that this makes "three botched executions in as many years," in Ohio. In 2006, as The Toledo Blade reported, the execution of Joseph Clark took nearly 90 minutes. According to The Associated Press, in 2007 the prison medical staff struggled to find a usable vein in the arms of an overweight prisoner, Christopher Newton, for nearly two hours. In that case, The A.P. reported: "The execution team stuck him at least 10 times with needles to get in place the shunts where the needles are injected."

Mr. Brown's execution has been rescheduled for next Tuesday, although it may be delayed by legal appeals. In the meantime, he has returned to death row.

In another state that practices lethal injection, Texas, a spokesman told the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday that officials do occasionally have problems finding a suitable vein, but have never had to halt an execution.

To get a better understanding of what the people charged with carrying out lethal injections do, and experience, listen to "Witness to an Execution," an audio documentary produced by Stacy Abramson and David Isay of SoundPortraits.org in 2000.

Last week a report from Amnesty International criticized the execution policy of another: Japan.

According to the report, prisoners on death row in Japan are kept in isolation, not allowed to speak to other inmates, barred from making eye contact with prison guards and, except during exercise periods, not even allowed to move around their cells.

Prisoners in Japan are also given no execution date, so, the human-rights group writes, "They are forced to await execution every day, facing a sentence that could be enforced at only a few hours notice." Some Japanese prisoners have been waiting for decades to be executed.

*An earlier version of this post gave the wrong first name for Ohio's governor. Thanks to readers for pointing that out.