The State of Ohio plans to try again next week to execute a convicted rapist-murderer, after a team of technicians spent 2 hours on Tuesday in an unsuccessful effort to inject him with lethal drugs.
This is the 1st time an execution by lethal injection in the United States has failed and then been rescheduled, according to Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, in Washington.
The only similar case in modern times, Mr. Dieter said, occurred in Louisiana in 1946, when electric shock failed to kill a convicted murderer, Willie Francis. He was electrocuted the next year, after the United States Supreme Court ruled that executing a prisoner in the wake of a failed 1st attempt was constitutional.
Tuesday's 1-week postponement was ordered by Gov. Ted Strickland after he was alerted by the Ohio corrections department that technicians at the state prison in Lucasville, some 70 miles east of Cincinnati, had struggled for more than 2 hours to find a suitable vein in either the arms or the legs of the inmate, Romell Broom, 53.
In a log reviewed by The Associated Press, the executioners attributed their troubles to past intravenous drug use by Mr. Broom. Amanda Wurst, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that Mr. Broom had once told officials he had been an IV drug user but that he had later recanted. His lawyers said they were not aware of any IV drug use.
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 2 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."
Ms. Shank watched Tuesday's procedure on closed-circuit television. "I could see him on the screen," she said, "and it was apparent to me that he was wincing with pain."
The Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that the state must abolish lethal injection.
"This is the 3rd screwed-up execution in 3 years," said Jeffrey M. Gamso of the A.C.L.U. of Ohio. "They keep tweaking their protocol, but it takes more than tweaks. They don't know how to do this competently, and they need to stop."
In referring to 2 previous troubled executions in Ohio, Mr. Gamso was speaking of the death of Joseph Clark in 2006, delayed more than an hour because of problems with IV placement, and the 2007 execution of Christopher Newton, also delayed more than an hour while technicians tried at least 10 times to insert the IV.
The director of the state corrections department, Terry J. Collins, said he and his staff were seeking the advice of doctors and others to plan for a successful execution next Tuesday.
"I won't have discussions about what if it doesn't work next week' at this point," Mr. Collins said, "because I have confidence that my team will be able to do its job."
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty, said problems with veins were inevitable in lethal injection by IV.
Mr. Scheidegger said he favored execution methods involving intramuscular injection or a return to gas chambers, but with a poison other than cyanide, which was long under attack because of the suffering it can inflict.
Mr. Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that given the likelihood of legal appeals, there was little chance that Mr. Broom would be put to death next Tuesday.
"The question of whether this is still an acceptable punishment in our society," he said of executions generally, "is compounded by this mistake."
Source: New York Times, Sept. 17, 2009
