Botched Executions Persist Across the U.S.
As if capital punishment wasn’t already controversial enough, there’s more reason for outrage on both sides of the issue. The Constitution promises inmates freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment” — even when put to death. But Joseph Wood is an example of botched executions garnering media attention, and a lot of unanswered questions.
Joseph Wood was convicted of double homicide, having shot and killed his estranged girlfriend and her father. He was scheduled for lethal injection in Gilbert, Arizona on July 23, 2014. While the process, when correctly followed, should lead to a painless death, in Wood’s case it seemed anything but. Wood took nearly two hours to die, with some witnesses reporting him clamoring for breath the entire time. Mauricio Martin, a media witness, said in a press conference that he counted over 660 times that Wood gasped for air. Wood’s punishment, according to the families of the victims, was well-deserved. But many critics, journalists and medical professionals see it as a human rights violation.
Lethal injection generally works in three stages. The first stage is an anesthetic, to make the inmate unconscious. The second stage is for paralysis to keep them from involuntarily flailing. The third, typically potassium chloride, stops the heart. The process has arguably worked with few complications — though some suspect that prisoners may actually be awake, with no way to notify personnel. The current situation began when supply of pentobarbital, the standard barbiturate used for stage one of lethal injection, shut down in the United States in 2011 because of its use in executions in virtually every practicing prison. Since then, correctional facilities have been experimenting with different drug “cocktails” — and the results have been mixed, to say the least. Instead of a three-step process, a two-step procedure, using midazolam, a surgical anesthetic, and an overdose of hydromorphone, a narcotic pain killer, is being practiced in many locations.
Last January, Dennis McGuire, who was found guilty of raping and murdering a pregnant woman, was executed in Ohio. McGuire was the state’s first test subject in trying out the aforementioned new two-drug combination. He gasped and “rattled”, as some reported, for 13 minutes before dying 25 minutes after his injection. In Oklahoma in April, Clayton Lockett, convicted of kidnapping and murder, was injected with midazolam which caused him to writhe on the gurney, seeming to be in pain. His execution was halted, but the distress caused him to suffer and die of a heart attack a few minutes later. However, after investigation, the blame for Lockett’s botched procedure was less on the drug, and more on incompetence of his executioners, who punctured his vein while attempting to insert the needle.
In Joseph Wood’s case, Arizona maintains that it followed correct protocol and insists that he was “sedated” during the process, though an independent investigation is pending. His lawyer, Dale Baich, is unconvinced. “Arizona appears to have joined several other states who have been responsible for an entirely preventable horror - a bungled execution. The public should hold its officials responsible and demand to make this process more transparent,” he said in a public statement.
In response to Lockett’s execution, President Obama called for a review of policy and vowed to discuss the issue with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to determine the next steps. So far, it seems, no steps forward have been taken. And seeing as how that statement was made in May, executions are clearly not being postponed in the meantime.
[Pic via Flickr - T. Woodard]
