Joseph R. Wood III was pronounced
dead at 3:49 pm on Wednesday, a full 1 hour
and 57 minutes after the drugs meant to kill
him had been administered. The process
normally takes no longer than 15 minutes.
The process took so long that Wood's lawyers
had time to file an emergency motion at a
nearby courthouse, looking to halt the
execution. A journalist watching the execution
counted Wood gasp 660 times before he finally
succumbed. The motion was turned down, with
word coming half an hour after Wood was
pronounced dead.
Part of the problem is believed to be the drugs
used in the procedure. Following a boycott by
major pharmacies both inside and outside of the
United States, prisons have struggled to get
their hands on sufficient quantities of the
chemicals normally used.
The conventional protocol for lethal injection is
a barbiturate, usually sodium thiopental, to
induce unconsciousness, this is followed by
pancuronium bromide which causes respiratory
arrest and finally potassium chloride which
stops the heart from beating.
As states have run into difficulties in trying to
gain access to these drugs, they have turned to
other more freely available ones. However, while
these new combinations may be feasible on
paper, there is no way to test them until they
are used in an actual execution. This has led to
claims that death row inmates are being used
as guinea pigs and their deaths are in violation
of bans against cruel and unusual punishment.
In the case of Joseph Wood, the sedative used
was a massive dose of midazolam, followed by
hydromorphone, an opioid. The medical record
of the procedure stated that it took 4 minutes
for him to reach a state of surgical anaesthesia,
but nearly two hours until his lungs stopped
working and he was pronounced dead.
The nature of the execution caused significant
uproar as death-penalty activists claimed it
was another example of a procedure that did
not work. The Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer,
who is a staunch supporter of capital
punishment, ordered an investigation into the
execution.
In a statement, Brewer said: “While justice was
carried out today, I directed the Department of
Corrections to conduct a full review of the
process,” she said. “One thing is certain,
however: Inmate Wood died in a lawful manner,
and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did
not suffer. This is in stark comparison to the
gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on
his two victims — and the lifetime of suffering
he has caused their family.”
A federal court ordered that blood samples be
taken from 6 different parts of Wood's body as
well as tissue samples from his brain, liver and
muscles. This was to be completed before 8 pm
to ensure the integrity of the samples. The
labels from the drugs used were also requested
by the Arizona Supreme Court.
This latest drama comes just months after the
botched execution of Clayton Lockett on
Oklahoma. Lockett was clearly not fully sedated
and tried to rise from the gurney 14 minutes
after the drugs were administered. However,
while Lockett was most probably in severe pain,
it is unclear whether Wood was suitably
conscious to experience pain himself.
Wood was sentenced to death for the 1989
murder of his estranged girlfriend Debra Dietz
and her father Eugene Dietz. Ms. Dietz had
obtained a restraining order against Wood but
he confronted her father, who disapproved of
their relationship, before shooting them both
dead.
Executions in Arizona have been temporarily
halted while the investigation is ongoing. The
state currently has 119 inmates on death row.
No comments:
Post a Comment