I am personally against the death penalty, and I don't believe this man should even be on death row.
Unfortunately, he is.

I think that any inmate sentenced to death should be put to death in the most humane way possible. This man was not. 2 hours and some untrained idiots couldn't even find a vein. Someone put to death should not be subjected to something like this. Get someone in who knows what they are doing, and who can cause the least amount of pain and suffering as possible.

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Kinda doubt the guy was dehydrated. Medical problems perhaps but nothing in 2.5 hrs ? A vet could hit it given that long.

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Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

I think the quoted professors in the article are correct: I don't think the SCOTUS--especially this panel of them--would find a second attempt to violate the Eighth Amendment. Moreover, as stated in the article, an earlier SCOTUS decision in 1947 reviewed a similar situation and held it was constitutional to perform a second attempt to execute the condemned prisoner. I don't see the court overturning it, not this panel of them anyway. It's actually happened plenty of time in the history of US executions, never mind elsewhere. But it's never ended the sentence.

But it does make for trauma for the condemned and bad press, that's for sure. Take the hanging of James Fitzgerald in 1896 where the rope broke when he went through the trap door as just one of many examples of a botched execution attempt:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...649C94679ED7CF

IMO, the condemned prisoner here would have more chances if he tried different avenues of challenges such as due process in conjunction with a particularied Eighth Amendment claim.

For example, in OH, the execution method by statute is lethal injection; however, if lethal injection held unconstitutional, then any subsequently prescribed legal method will suffice. Recently, in Baze v. Rees, the SCOTUS has held that lethal injection is constitutional under the Eighth Amendment. If it appears that Broom doesn't have the veins to allow it, he could argue that the prescribed method of performing his penalty is impossible under due process, at least without implicating Eighth Amendment concerns as to him specifically rather than a general challenge to lethal injection itself. He could also argue that since the SCOTUS has held that lethal injection is constitutional under the Eighth Amendment, alternative methods are not triggered by the OH statute. Thus, if they can't execute him by lethal injection, then the sentence violates due process and needs to be reduced to life imprisonment.

Another tactic he should include citing his case and a few others where this problem happened and make his challenges under the OH state constitution. It's an independent source of law and OH jurists are free to decide its meaning where it can reach different decisions than the SCOTUS interpreting the US Constitution.

This is also one of those 'bad press' kinds of cases that the Governor might be more inclined to try to mitigate with a commutation of life imprisonment without parole and ordering a review of the current process. So, I'd expect that this avenue would be attempted making all the sales pitches for it.

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Definitely a bad press case. I don't think that one try should be the last in a case like this. Contraband in prisons is usually rampant, and I can just see people like this sitting there in the still of the night with a couple of their buddies deliberately blowing out all their veins. Some are that stupid. Of course they aren't bright to have gotten on death row.

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Well, he got the DP for having raped and murdered a 14 year old female teenager. If the DP is going to still remain the law, he's a prime candidate for deserving it and not exactly bleeding heart material on paying the ultimate price for his crime. After all, I'm quite sure having the DP finally imposed can be quite stressful and traumatic for many of the condemned in all the first and successful performances, e.g., re-enactment scene of the execution of Dorothea Waddington in Pierrepoint at 8:15:

YouTube - P//PPRRPOINT PART2

And I totally agree in envisioning many DP convicts attempting to render themselves unable to have lethal injections in order to escape the punishment if they felt it could work. But, it would be a different scenario for defendants who do that (triggering 'estoppel' based arguments against any claims made by them because they are seeking a benefit from their own wrongdoing) as opposed to this person who presumably did not purposefully inhibit the procedure. In fact, this prisoner tried to help it get performed because of the pain it was causing him so he could 'get it over with,' but it still failed.

It would make more sense that OH, if it's going to be a DP state, amends its current law to model after many other DP states that allow alternative forms of execution if the primary method won't work for whatever reason in a given case. For example, I cited NH's law in the DC Sniper thread that allows the authorised corrections official to elect hanging if lethal injection in his or her opinion can't be performed on someone for whatever reason. That kind of a law would certainly take the incentive out of DP prisoners messing with their own veins if they thought they'd still get executed anyway and by means that might frighten them more. But, OH's statute only allows other methods if lethal injection itself is held unconstitutional as a mode of performance, which it has now been held that it is constitutional.

If his counsel is worth his salt, he's going to use arguments like that along with the sales pitches on the event itself because they are based on cool and detached facts of the law regardless of sentiments towards him in particular. It's how many escape the noose and other rigours of the law--escaping the noose through the loophole itself.

But I wouldn't underestimate the value of a Governor and/or Pardons Board to commute a DP sentence to life without parole whenever an individualised case is deemed to be bad enough press for a DP sentence that they believe it isn't worth the candle, e.g.,

Oklahoma Governor Henry Grants Clemency to Death Row Inmate Torres

That Fitzgerald case I cited above, for example, was very controversial and caused major public outrage and it's still cited material today along with many other cases of botched executions by anti-DP people. If I were the sheriff at the time and viewing how the crowds reacted, etc, I would have sent a wire back to the Governor ASAP once that rope broke saying "Umm, hey Guv, I know you said go ahead and hang him . . . but, ummmmm, well, we had a slight little bit of an equipment malfunction here and the crowd has flipped its sentiments on the event so, umm, you might just want to reconsider this particular one."

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Interesting links. You and I have talked before of TN laws regarding criminal defendants, mental health cases, etc. But I don't think we have discussed anything regarding death penalty cases. The more I learn about how others do things, the more privileged I feel to have gotten what I did from a TN law school. I can see in cases like this that in many ways in TN we have been ahead of the curve on some things. (Even if some, like the author of this article think we are not satisfactorily ahead of the curve.)

Here is a link to an article if you have the chance to look at it:

http://www.thejusticeproject.org/wp-...law-review.pdf

In TN, representation of a DP client is not allowed by someone who just 'happens to be a lawyer.' And appeals for sympathy like those you mentioned are not particularly respected.

From the article:

The counsel the DP client starts with may not be the one he/she ends with. In /TN the person who defends a death penalty case has to be specially trained in the LEGAL aspects of the death penalty cases. I know that may be seen as extravagant, but in reality, I think it is very practical. The article mentions the number of cases that were oveturned in TN alone based on Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685 (1984). They were quite numerous.

Anyway, this article isn't real complimentary about the way TN does this:

And it doesn't like who gets to serve:

And in the end the author thinks Tennessee's efforts are inadequate to ensure true justice for the DP client.

Still, I think we are trying. I see that in cases like this where someone doesn't have all the legal bases covered.

My big criticism of the lethal injection method of execution is not legal at all. My big objection to lethal injection is that is is a MEDICAL procedure, and medical procedures require the expertise of medical people. As long as the justice system takes it upon itself to cross into a field of which it knows little to nothing without the aid of an expert witness things like this will continue to occur resulting in future legal problems.

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Honestly, why bother with finding a vein. With the right caliber, even the worsts shots are sure to cause a painless death, if only because the criminal has nothing with which to feel pain long before the neurons can send the message.

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January 21, 2013: The End of an ERROR.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
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---Benjamin Franklin

It's the same in PA now since 2004. PA Rule of Criminal Procedure 801 states the following insofar as a minimum curriculum vitae/resume of qualifications to act as lead counsel on a death penalty case:

234 Pa. Code Rule 801. Qualifications for Defense Counsel in Capital Cases.

The sticky wicket, as I'm sure you are aware, is that the various forms of modern Hippocratic Oaths that physicians take for using their expertise vows in specific and general terms to not use their skills to hurt people. In fact, the original Oath contains the following language in pertinent part insofar as it may relate to lethal injection: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect." That, plus common medical ethics regarding beneficence and nonmaleficence, forms the main reasons why the participation of physicians in capital punishment is not supported by the American Medical Association (AMA), and that's why it's so common for DP statutes and procedures to declare that any 'medical' duties concerning them do not have to be performed by physicians.

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I'm glad that states are requiring this special legal training for lawyers who represent death penalty cases. (The ones who as yet do not require this should listen up, IMO.) As a society, we really need to exhaust all avenues before we kill someone in the name of justice, as justice necessarily flows in both directions. I think the worst case scenario is when someone has been railroaded to the death penalty. But when, 100 years from now, it becomes obvious to someone studying the law that we did not follow all avenues of 'due process' then we would look equally as bad, given the level of legal expertise we now have in this country. (No one is out there now studying the law by candle light and apprenticing. Eveyone, as far as I know, gets formal education in the law, even though formal schooling may not be mandated in every state to take the bar exam.)

We do have MDs who are becoming less adverse to using lethal methods to end suffering, e.g. Dr. Kevorkian. But I don't think the death penalty would even fall into this and given Kevorkian's recent experience with the criminal justice system, I don't see him taking the reins in this cause.

Even nurses would have some ethical bind regarding the Nightingale Pledge:

Florence Nightingale: The "Nightingale Pledge"

Like the Hippocratic Oath there are several iterations of it, there is evidence that Florence Nightingale didn't write it. It is routinely recited at nursing school pinning ceremonies, though.

There is a lot of discussion in nursing on what is ethical and what is not regarding the relief of suffering as it pertains to nurses, and whether death is an acceptable side effect when a nurse relieves a patient's suffering. At any rate, I believe that people who deal in life and death with the ultimate goal being to preserve life, or to preservew the quality of life do not belong in the death penalty milieu. However, until the requisite level of expertise is achieved by the executioner we will have the scenario in this thread repeated over and over. Too bad that wasn't anticipated.

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This only makes me think of how the poor girl he raped and murdered must have cried and begged for her life and he showed her no mercy.

That is probably the case.

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Honestly, if the guy is sentenced to die, kill him.

If they fuck it up the first 100 times, do it a hundred and one...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

Since Scalia saw no legal problem with executing an innocent man, I'm sure he would have no problem re-executing the same individual thousands of times if necessary.

Personally, I am against the death penalty for a few reasons:
1) It ultimately costs more than imprisoning people for life.
2) It removes any chance of someone being proven innocent and being released after their execution.

Given the first one alone, I'm not sure what the point is unless its to act as a deterrent, which I doubt has ever been proved to be effective as a deterrent. For the few percent of cases that fit number two, it would seem a bargain to save money for the taxpayer while offering the chance for truly innocent to recover their lives.

poke him with the needle till he bleeds to death. try try try again.

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The bush administration and bank lobbyists proudly killing our economic system - 2003.

Works for me...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...