Caught between a legal requirement to avoid cruelty, and its desire to kill prisoners, the state of Ohio is struggling to find an acceptable method of execution following the botched, and failed, attempt to put Romell Broom to death on September 15. As reported in today’s New York Times, the method the state has chosen is injection into the vein of a single, lethal dose of anesthetic. This seems peculiar, since it was failure to find a suitable vein that led to the botched executions of Joseph Clark and Christopher Newton, as well as the recent Broom fiasco.
In the new Ohio protocol, another alternative, intramuscular injection, is available as a backup. This method has not been used before, but was given the thumbs up by Massachusetts anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Dershwitz, the one doctor in America who seems willing to help states kill prisoners. A local Ohio doctor, Jonathan Groner, seems to disagree, suggesting that legal challenges are far from over. “In the end this is still about killing people.”
It is indeed, and if this protocol proves acceptable to Ohio and federal courts, the lethal injection of Kenneth Biros and others could be back on schedule (the stay of Biros’ December 8 date is only temporary), and Ohio’s one-a-month assembly line of executions could be back in business.
I find it odd that death penalty opponents praised the decision to switch to a one-drug protocol as a step forward, since they criticized the three-drug cocktail as being too painful. But still, people in Ohio may continue to kill prisoners for murder, even with the one-drug injection, and I feel bad. Still, I will continue to pray for the death row inmates and their families and for the families of their victims, that they may find peace with one another, and that Ohio and the entire U.S. may realize the error of their ways and rid itself of state-sponsored death in order to find another way to renew and protect society from evil, so that violence will one day be no more. 🙁
I find it odd that death penalty opponents praised the decision to switch to a one-drug protocol as a step forward, since they criticized the three-drug cocktail as being too painful. But still, people in Ohio may continue to kill prisoners for murder, even with the one-drug injection, and I feel bad. Still, I will continue to pray for the death row inmates and their families and for the families of their victims, that they may find peace with one another, and that Ohio and the entire U.S. may realize the error of their ways and rid itself of state-sponsored death in order to find another way to renew and protect society from evil, so that violence will one day be no more. 🙁
Give me a break. This guy kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 14 year old. So what if he has a little pain in his itty bitty arm when he is executed.
Give me a break. This guy kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 14 year old. So what if he has a little pain in his itty bitty arm when he is executed.
Yes Broom is a convicted Murderer of a child and this is dispicable. Nobody would have criticised anyone from pulling the trigger on this man if he had been caught in the act. However, in this situation, he has lived on death row knowing that the date of his death is approaching. This in intself, in my view, is torture. As a human being he is entitled to human rights, no matter what his crimes, no matter how inhuman his actions. Once the execution procedure is started (and inserting the IV lines comes under this caveat) he is restricted of his human rights. He no longer gets to eat, drink, speak to ralatives or have access to an attorney or legal representative. According to the execution timeline, he asked for a legal represntative to observe the repeated attempts at IV line insertion after the second botched attempts. This was refused. He was afforded the same rights as a dead man…. A dead man walking. The state was unable to execute this man on the day of his pre-planned execution. That is their fault. The execution procedure had been started and, since it was halted, had been completed. Surely by virtue of this, a man cannot be sentenced to death twice or even punished twice for his crimes? Yes, the victims family would be justly upset but the problem belongs to the state, not the prisoner. He prepared himself, allowed the execution team to go about their business without putting up a fight, suffered the physical pain of botched IV insertions and venous cut-downs and the mental torture of expecting death, surviving and having to endure the whole process again. The only thing he didn't do was die. I say he has served his punishment and the likelihood of him re-offending now would be next to nil. A correctional facility that has potentially 'corrected' a criminal. How can he be executed?
Yes Broom is a convicted Murderer of a child and this is dispicable. Nobody would have criticised anyone from pulling the trigger on this man if he had been caught in the act. However, in this situation, he has lived on death row knowing that the date of his death is approaching. This in intself, in my view, is torture. As a human being he is entitled to human rights, no matter what his crimes, no matter how inhuman his actions. Once the execution procedure is started (and inserting the IV lines comes under this caveat) he is restricted of his human rights. He no longer gets to eat, drink, speak to ralatives or have access to an attorney or legal representative. According to the execution timeline, he asked for a legal represntative to observe the repeated attempts at IV line insertion after the second botched attempts. This was refused. He was afforded the same rights as a dead man…. A dead man walking. The state was unable to execute this man on the day of his pre-planned execution. That is their fault. The execution procedure had been started and, since it was halted, had been completed. Surely by virtue of this, a man cannot be sentenced to death twice or even punished twice for his crimes? Yes, the victims family would be justly upset but the problem belongs to the state, not the prisoner. He prepared himself, allowed the execution team to go about their business without putting up a fight, suffered the physical pain of botched IV insertions and venous cut-downs and the mental torture of expecting death, surviving and having to endure the whole process again. The only thing he didn’t do was die. I say he has served his punishment and the likelihood of him re-offending now would be next to nil. A correctional facility that has potentially ‘corrected’ a criminal. How can he be executed?