Shocking new pictures lay bare Death Row inmate's injuries from botched execution he said was...

DAILY MAIL UK ^ | Mar 7, 2018 | Chris Pleasance for MailOnline

[Morgana]

FULL TITLE: Shocking new pictures lay bare Death Row inmate's injuries from botched execution he said was so painful that he just wanted doctors to 'get it over with'

A Death Row inmate wished for death during a botched execution that saw him stabbed 11 times in the legs and groin with needles.

Doyle Lee Hamm was due to be executed on February 22 for the murder of Patrick Cunningham, but the procedure had to be called off after doctors were unable to find a vein.

Hamm, who was too weak to stand after the ordeal, was left bleeding from the groin and urinated blood an hour later, a medical examiner's report says.

Bernard Harcourt, Hamm's attorney, had warned ahead of time that cancer treatment had left him with compromised veins and that he was likely to be subjected to 'cruel and needless pain.'

Harcourt has now launched a legal suit against the Alabama Department of Corrections, saying Hamm's treatment amounted to torture.

On Monday a medical examiner's report including new images of Hamm's injuries were filed which give an account of his suffering.

According to an interview with Hamm carried out by Dr Mark Heath, an anesthesiologist from New York, on the night of the execution he was taken into a chamber with around nine people inside and strapped down to a gurney.

Two men dressed in hospital scrubs then took a leg each and worked their way up attempting to find a vein.

[krogers58]

As I understand it, Ohio has had to deal with this issue, and have developed a protocol where they prisoner is injected, intra-muscularly (in the butt), an overdose of versed and dilaudid. No veins needed. But, I’d also be in favor of the firing squad, quick, relatively painless, and cheap.

[b4its2late]

Hahahaha.

[american_ranger]

Would you use medical grade nitrogen or just welding grade?

[confederatecarpetbag]

Of which there remain many unsettled questions on what constitutes “cruel and unusual.” I.E, do we use the original 1791 standard? Contemporary public opinion? Something else?

Not to mention punishment that is proportionate to the crime. Such as, what type of justice shall be meted out on a criminal who commits a particularly cruel and unusual crime?

The cruel/unusual standard was added initially as a sat against government instituting crime and unilaterally applying coercion and torture to extract “confessions” arbitrarily.

The liberal SCOTUS flared this debate when abolishing capital punishment in the 1970s. The pieces of that debate have never been put together again. Which is why states have different statutes on the books, yet are restrained in what they may do.