[NYTr] Amnesty Int'l lLsts US Execution Horrors

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Guardian - Oct 4, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2182952,00.html

Amnesty lists execution horrors

by Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

The use of lethal injections in the US has led to at least nine bungled
executions, including one in which the prisoner took 69 minutes to die
and another in which the condemned man complained five times: "It don't
work," a report by Amnesty International says today.

The report contains a catalogue of botched executions dating from 2000,
when lethal injection was adopted by 37 of the 38 US states with the
death penalty.

In an execution in Ohio in May last year it took technicians 22 minutes
to find a suitable vein in which to inject the lethal combination of
three drugs. When the condemned man, Joseph Clark, raised his head to
complain that the process was not working, the technicians closed the
curtains around his trolley and spent an additional 30 minutes looking
for a suitable vein.

An autopsy discovered 19 puncture marks on Clark's corpse.

In a celebrated case in Florida in December last year the condemned man,
Angel Nieves Dias, suffered chemical burns along his arms after
technicians struggled to find a vein. Reports at the time described Diaz
as grimacing in pain.

Such horrific instances have destroyed the main argument for lethal
injection - that it offers a relatively painless and humane death,
Amnesty says. "A number of executions in the USA have been botched and
caused suffering, sometimes prolonged, to the victim."

Amnesty notes that Texas, which operates America's busiest execution
chamber, has banned one of the chemicals involved for use in euthanising
pets, because it does not effectively mask pain.

The report comes days after an unofficial halt to executions following a
supreme court decision to review the lethal injection method. On Tuesday
night the appeals court of Texas stayed the impending execution of a
Honduran man pending the supreme court's decision.

Guardian Unlimited ) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007