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| Arizona Death Chamber |
When the State of Arizona carried out the grisly business of executing Richard Stokley last week, it did so in a transparent manner. Of the 34 executions the state has conducted since 1992, this was the third time that witnesses were able to observe most of the execution process.
Why is this important? Transparency is vital to an informed citizenry. So it is crucial that witnesses can now observe, by way of a closed-circuit video monitor, the prisoner from the point after he is strapped to the table until he is pronounced dead. Witnesses hear what occurs in the execution chamber via an audio feed, and the media are provided an opportunity to record what they see and hear.
Notwithstanding this transparency, reports of Mr. Stokley’s execution described only a small part of the process. Media accounts noted the execution team “had difficulty finding a second injection point.” Mr. Stokley was described as “calm, talkative and nice” and “bantered at times with the execution team.” He was “pronounced dead at 11:12 a.m. after receiving an injection of pentobarbital.”
But there was more to Mr. Stokley’s execution than was reported by the media. I know. I was there.
The execution process began at 9:54 a.m. when the IV team--who may be doctors, nurses, paramedics or military corpsmen--began to assess Mr. Stokley’s veins. The two IV team members spent about a minute doing this.
Upon inspecting Mr. Stokley’s right arm, one team member said “it looks like you have some pretty good veins in this area.” After a quick shave, application of a blue tourniquet, and a swab of the area, an IV team member inserted a catheter into the right forearm and remarked at 10:02 a.m., “you did very good on that one.”
Then the team moved to Mr. Stokley’s left arm. They made at least three attempts to get a vein, at one point going to an area just below the shoulder. After one team member asked if the left side was more fragile, Mr. Stokley said, “it depends on whose doing the poking.” After 10 minutes and soaking up a lot of blood with gauze pads, the IV team gave up.
Next the IV team took a drastic step: It performed an invasive surgical procedure to set the IV line in Mr. Stokley’s groin.
At 10:18 a.m., an IV team member told Mr. Stokley that a central femoral line was going to be inserted. “We’re going to use an ultrasound . . . a local anesthetic . . . you’ll feel pressure,” the team member said. Two minutes later, he said “a little shave,” as he used electric clippers to remove hair from the groin area. Then, the IV team member began to feel for the femoral vein.
For the next 21 minutes, the two IV team members used an ultrasound, swabbed the area, dressed the area with a blue sheet, injected a local anesthetic, made an incision, inserted a catheter and guidewire, sewed the line into place, and mopped up blood.
At the point when the catheter and guidewire were being placed, Mr. Stokley said, “It felt like a pop. Whoa.” He went on to say, “That’s real sensitive” and “I feel a little pain up there.” Mr. Stokley moaned, and at one point said, “It stings.”
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| Richard Stokley |
Once the IV team set the femoral line, they connected that catheter and the catheter they had placed into the right arm 41 minutes earlier to the tubing that would deliver the fatal pentobarbital. Meanwhile, a corrections officer wiped up blood from the floor on the left side of the execution table.
A warden asked Mr. Stokley if he had any last words. Looking up to the ceiling of the execution chamber, he said, “Naw.” Mr. Stokley closed his eyes for the last time at 10:52 a.m. A minute-and-a-half later, his head turned quickly to the left, then back up. His chest heaved, and he swallowed hard. His right fist was clenched.
As required by the Arizona lethal-injection protocol, one of the IV team members entered the execution chamber three minutes after the pentobarbital was injected and conducted a consciousness check. An announcement came through the speakers in the witness room that Richard Stokley was “sedated.”
Six minutes later, Mr. Stokley’s body lurched upward, violently. The restraining straps on the gurney kept his body on the table. Most of the witnesses in the observation room jumped, too.
Why did Mr. Stokley shake and jerk? It could have been spasms that sometimes occur at death. Or it could have been Mr. Stokley’s heart trying to restart because of a device, implanted in his chest that, among other things, served as a defibrillator to shock the heart if the heart rhythm required it. Patients describe the shocks like being kicked in the chest.
At 11:13 a.m., a man in a suit appeared in the execution chamber. He said, “I’m Director Ryan. The execution is complete. Time of death 11:12.”
Because of the transparency now attendant to executions in Arizona, the public can debate whether the two men who were responsible for inserting the IV lines were competent. It’s time for other states to open up the execution process for all to see so that citizens have more information when debating the wisdom of keeping the death penalty on the books.
Source: Witness to an execution, Dale A. Baich. Mr. Baich is an assistant federal public defender. He joined the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Arizona in 1996 and is the supervising attorney in the Capital Habeas Unit. Dale is a member of the Board of Governors of the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, on the Board of Directors of the Phoenix Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, and on the Advisory Board of the Arizona Death Penalty Forum. He was an assistant state public defender in Ohio from 1988 to 1996. December 18, 2012