6/9/00
If legal injection is also a problem, then we need to go back to the only
sure, quick, painless mode of death. Decapitation. The guillotine was a
good idea back in the old days, let's bring it back again. Any idiot can
work one.
Joshua2
========================
DIG alfred webre wrote:
>
> << Problems came with 2nd needle
>
> After three tries, officials abandon attempts to insert a second line into
> Bennie Demps. That may have violated execution protocols.
> By SHELBY OPPEL and JO BECKER
>
> � St. Petersburg Times, published June 9, 2000
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
>
> TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday staunchly defended the
> controversial handling of Florida's latest lethal injection, insisting state
> corrections officials performed the procedure "according to the textbook."
>
> "There was no botched nature to it at all," Bush said.
>
> But newly released details about the struggle to insert a second intravenous
> needle into three-time convicted killer Bennie Demps show state officials
> may have violated their own written execution protocol.
>
> That protocol says the medical technicians "shall complete" two intravenous
> lines into the condemned inmate. The governor's office says only one line
> was inserted, after technicians tried to insert a needle in at least four
> locations on Demps' body.
>
> In the wake of Demps' execution, other questions surfaced among death
> penalty opponents about the qualifications of the medical technicians who
> attempted to insert the needle and about the highly secretive procedure that
> has developed in the six months since the state switched its method of
> execution to lethal injection.
>
> Demps' final words -- a six-minute diatribe describing repeated attempts to
> insert the needle in his leg and groin -- has death row attorneys preparing
> to challenge lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.
>
> Michael Reiter is the attorney for convicted murderer Thomas Provenzano, who
> is scheduled to die June 20. Citing the state's history of botched
> executions, Reiter said: "I don't think they have the proper training. I
> don't think they have the competence and they make a mess of things."
>
> Demps' last request was to ask for an investigation into his execution.
> Alachua County State Attorney Rod Smith declined that request, made Thursday
> by Demps' attorney, concluding, "Mr. Demps was legally executed for a
> murder."
>
> But Smith gave the most graphic indication yet of what happened to Demps in
> the hour before a curtain parted to allow witnesses to see him strapped to a
> gurney in the death chamber.
>
> In a written statement, Smith said an observer from his office described
> five punctures in Demps' body -- confirming Demps' dying claims. The marks
> were a large-bore needle mark in Demps' right groin, a small incision inside
> his right ankle and two puncture wounds in his right arm. His left arm
> showed a mark from the intravenous needle that carried the fatal drugs into
> Demps' bloodstream.
>
> Before dying, Demps asserted prison officials began attempts to insert
> needles at 5:40 p.m. and made a final cut in his leg at 6:20 p.m.
>
> Justin Sayfie, a spokesman for Bush, gave this chronology Thursday about how
> the marks and puncture wounds appeared:
>
> After the first intravenous needle was successfully inserted into Demps'
> left arm, officials attempted to insert a second needle into his right arm,
> his right groin and finally into his right ankle. Failing to find a vein in
> any of those three places, officials abandoned the effort and decided to use
> only one intravenous needle for the execution, Sayfie said.
>
> Before dying, Demps complained that the process was painful and caused him
> to bleed "profusely."
>
> "That's clearly torture," said Abe Bonowitz, director of the newly formed
> Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
>
> C.J. Drake, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, disagreed.
>
> "This guy spoke for up to seven minutes so it's hard to believe this guy was
> in that much pain," he said.
>
> "But for the needles, it's not an invasive procedure."
>
> When corrections officials abandoned the attempt to insert the second
> intravenous needle, they appeared to violate their own protocol, which
> states: "The designated members of the Execution Team shall complete the
> primary and alternate IV and the heart monitor setup(s)."
>
> Demps was executed Wednesday for the slaying of another Florida State Prison
> inmate. He also had been convicted of killing two other people.
>
> Bush, visiting Tampa on Thursday, said justice was served.
>
> "It wasn't botched. They went according to protocol, and it worked. . . .
> There was no botched nature to it at all," the governor said. "It gives me
> no great joy, but he was not in pain. Lethal injection worked. And it was
> all done according to the textbook, so that's just the way it is."
>
> The department, which has presided over three botched executions in the last
> nine years, has a history of not following execution protocol. After Allen
> "Tiny" Lee Davis died in the electric chair in a bloody spectacle last year,
> an attorney for Provenzano challenged the state's use of the electric chair.
>
> The state Supreme Court rejected his claims, but scolded the department.
>
> "Once again, we are troubled that there is an indication that DOC has not
> followed the protocol established for the appropriate functioning of the
> electric chair and carrying out of the death penalty," the July 1999 opinion
> read.
>
> Reiter, who is representing Provenzano, said the issue will likely be raised
> in a challenge before the Florida Supreme Court, but he added that the court
> has allowed executions to continue in the past when it had knowledge that
> protocols were violated.
>
> "The Florida Supreme Court is not going to abolish the death penalty merely
> because the department fails to follow protocol, even though the court
> should," he said. "My feeling is we're going to have to go to the U.S.
> Supreme Court and say, "Look, these people in Florida don't know what
> they're doing and they can't even follow their own rules.' "
>
> Drake, the corrections spokesman, did not want to comment on the matter,
> saying "obviously this thing is headed for litigation."
>
> In fact, much of the execution preparations are cloaked in secrecy, which
> makes it more difficult to mount a legal challenge. The intravenous needles
> are inserted out of view of the public. An independent witness from the
> Florida Department of Law Enforcement observes the procedure but does not
> file a written report or share his observations "unless he is compelled to
> do so in a legal proceeding," Drake said.
>
> Drake would say only that "medically trained personnel" inserted the
> intravenous needles. The department's vaguely worded protocols say nothing
> about what qualifications, training or credentials are required to perform
> that procedure, and Drake refused to elaborate.
>
> In Demps' case, Warden James Crosby said, "a surgical procedure" was
> performed in an attempt to find a suitable vein. Department officials would
> not say who performed that surgery, raising a new set of questions: On the
> one hand, the American Medical Association prohibits doctors from
> participating in executions. On the other, Reiter questioned whether a
> "surgical procedure" should be done by anyone other than a doctor.
>
> Michael Radelet, a University of Florida professor who studies the death
> penalty, said Florida should study the role of medical personnel and the
> doctor who attended Demps' execution. "What were they doing in there?" he
> said. "Those physicians' presence is a clear violation of the ethical
> standards of the American Medical Association."
>
> The Demps execution is the 17th report of a botched lethal injection since
> 1982, when the first inmate was put to death by needle in Texas, Radelet
> said.
>
> Radelet could recall only one other lethal injection, in 1996 in Indiana,
> during which officials struggled to find a vein for as long as they did with
> Demps.
>
> If Demps' claims are true, Radelet said, "Florida has set a new record for
> the most prolonged and botched lethal injection in the history of the
> world."
>
> Most of the mistakes in other states have occurred because executioners are
> unable to find a good vein, as was the case with Demps. Others have resulted
> from improper administration of chemicals.
>
> Even in a hospital or a doctor's office, experts say locating a vein and
> inserting an intravenous needle can be difficult.
>
> Veins can be hard to find if a patient is dehydrated, since fluid is stored
> in the blood vessels. Fat or heavily muscled patients can pose problems.
> Even a deep tan can make skin tough and hard to penetrate.
>
> And a man about to be put to death could pose another problem entirely.
>
> Willa Fuller, a registered nurse with the Florida Nurses Association,
> described what appears to happen to some patients who fear needles.
>
> "There's that unspoken "You're scared to death,' " she said, "and your veins
> will constrict."
>
> Times staff writers Sydney P. Freedberg and Kyle Parks contributed to this
> report.
> ______
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