All eyes on Lucasville in next execution attempt

COLUMBUS – Will it fail again? Will there be another last-minute court stay or reprieve ordered by the governor? Or will Ohio move ahead and try to execute Romell Broom for the second time in December?

Whatever happens, the attention of death penalty opponents and supporters nationwide is focused on the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville – home to the Death House and 32 executions by lethal injection since 1999.

The attempted execution of Romell Broom, 53, on Sept. 15 was the first lethal-injection ever stopped due to problems finding a usable vein.

The only other time a U.S. execution failed after the process began was more than 50 years ago when Louisiana tried to electrocute 17-year-old Willie Francis. A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ordered a second try in the electric chair on May 9, 1947.

A plan to try a second time was halted Tuesday by a federal judge after Broom’s attorneys sued the state, saying a repeat attempt would be “cruel and unusual punishment” and “double jeopardy,” prohibited under the U.S. and Ohio Constitution.

The 25th anniversary of Broom’s crime was Monday, but the family of 14-year-old Tryna Middletown, abducted at knifepoint, raped and murdered while walking home from a football game, will have to wait at least two more months to find out whether her killer will be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost on Tuesday rescheduled a hearing planned for Monday until Nov. 30. The state did not contest Frost’s order.

Broom was taken back across the state, from Lucasville to the Ohio State Penitentiary – a super-maximum security prison that houses most Death Row inmates in Youngstown – last Sunday.

After prison medical staff couldn’t keep a vein open on Broom’s arms and legs so they could hook him up to the tubes carrying lethal chemicals, Gov. Ted Strickland, a former prison psychologist at Lucasville, ordered a week-long reprieve. No Ohio governor has issued a similar last-minute reprieve since the state resumed executions in 1999.

Strickland has asked his prison director for recommendations on how to proceed. “They are putting together recommendations for the governor. … There’s not a set deadline,” said Amanda Wurst, Strickland’s spokeswoman.

Broom told his attorneys he counted 18 puncture wounds on his arms after emergency medical technicians from Lucasville prison struggled to keep a vein open during two hours of attempts.

“The pain, suffering and distress to which Broom was subjected went well beyond that which is tolerated by the United States and Ohio Constitution,” the court complaint says. “It was a form of torture that exposed Broom to the prospect of a slow, lingering death, not the quick and painless one he was promised …”

Any repeat attempt is expected to attract heightened protests by those opposed to capital punishment in Ohio and media attention.

Sister Alice Gerdeman of Cincinnati, president of Ohioans to Stop Executions, stood outside Lucasville prison Sept. 15, but hopes she doesn’t have to return. “We’re there to be there in support and in prayer with the person who is being executed, with the family members of both the executed and the victims.”

Sister Helen Prejean, during a Monday speech at Xavier University, likened Broom’s treatment to torture.

Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking” and “The Death of Innocence,” said, “Ohio has become a killing field … When that needle is put in, our hand is on it.”

The lethal injection setbacks also sparked national debate among death penalty observers and legal scholars.

“No state has said, ‘We have a better method,’ ” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

“There are a lot of issues that could prevent this from happening,” Dieter said. “You may not be able to do it, period.”

“Every state has gone to lethal injection as presumably the more humane way,” Dieter said. “What’s at issue here is what’s palatable or acceptable for the guards, the witnesses, the victim’s family members (and) the public.”

Theoretically, a firing squad – still offered as an alternative to lethal injection in Utah – works 100 percent of the time, Dieter said, “But whether people want that bloody scene, or electrocution or gas chamber with all that it represents from the past, I doubt it. So lethal injection may be the only real alternative. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be changed. … There will be other executions in Ohio, and some other change may have to be made.’’

In an interview with The Enquirer two days after the failed execution, attorney S. Adele Shank said Broom’s arms “were still swollen and red. There were many, many red welts. … It was very traumatizing for him. His anxiety is high.”

Bessye and David Middleton, who witnessed the attempted execution in memory of their daughter, Tryna, have said they want her killer’s execution to proceed.

Complaints filed in the U.S. District Court on Sept. 18 name Strickland, state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Terry Collins, Lucasville Warden Phil Kerns and 12 unnamed members of the execution team, prison employees identified as John and Jane Doe.

During and after the unsuccessful execution attempt Sept. 15, Collins and his department praised the execution team for its professionalism and compassion while carrying out their legal duties.

Collins said Broom was asked if he wanted to take any breaks, but said no. The inmate helped the team locate veins several times, rolling onto his side and massaging his arms.

“They are all experienced and trained,” DRC spokeswoman Julie Walburn said of the prison employees who volunteer for execution duty.

“We are never 100 percent perfect 100 percent of the time,” Collins said after Strickland ordered the reprieve. “This is an extremely trying time for lots and lots of people.”

In a separate development, Shank denied a report that Broom used intravenous drugs before entering prison more than 25 years ago. Prison officials speculated that that would have damaged his veins, making them more vulnerable to collapse.

“Romell has told us that he never used IV drugs,” Shank said.

Lethal injection experts, including an attorney from the University of California at Berkeley, said Broom’s decision not to take a sedative, an option offered by the state, could have helped raise his anxiety level and helped collapse veins.

After convicted killer Joseph Clark experienced some of the same delays in locating veins during his May 2006 execution, the doctor performing his autopsy suggested the prison’s medical team might have lacked technical skills.

Dr. L. J. Dragovic, chief medical examiner for Oakland County, Mich., wrote a letter to Clark’s attorney, saying, “The presence of 19 needle puncture wounds is indicative of technical difficulties the execution team encountered during this execution procedure … Multiple injection attempts (to find a vein) suggests inadequate technical skills of the personnel involved in carrying out this procedure.”

“It would be cruel to go forward,” Shank said after the failed execution. “His veins would all be injured now.”

Source: Jon Craig and Lisa Preston, The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 26, 2009