Posted on 02/12/2007 7:47:47 PM PST by Graybeard58
TAMPA — A doctor told a panel reviewing Florida’s lethal injection procedures that executioners “did the worst thing they could do” during the botched killing of condemned inmate Angel Diaz last year.
The testimony came from Mark Heath, a Columbia University anesthesiologist who has testified on the behalf of death row inmates in about 20 states.
But despite such testimony, the key question of whether Diaz suffered pain during the execution remained murky. Heath said the execution team “did exactly 100 percent the wrong thing” during the Dec. 13 execution of Diaz, who was condemned for the 1979 shooting death of a Miami topless club manager.
Plastic needles threaded into Diaz’s arms tore through his veins, splashing chemicals into his flesh. Because the chemical didn’t go directly to Diaz’s brain and heart, he took 34 minutes to die — about twice as long as usual.
An autopsy the next day showed Diaz suffered footlong chemical blisters on both of his arms.
Florida’s execution procedures call for a three-drug cocktail: a sedative, a drug that causes paralysis and a drug that causes a fatal heart attack.
The executioner testified last week that he released the sedative into Diaz, then couldn’t get the paralytic drug to flow into Diaz’s vein. The doctor who performed the autopsy said Diaz’s veins likely tore right away, so none of the sedative likely made it to his brain quickly.
“None of the materials injected went to the right place,” Medical Examiner William Hamilton testified Monday. “Was he feeling anything? I don’t know.”
A medical member of the execution team then decided to release the third drug, which causes a severe burning pain, into Diaz’s other arm. This move baffled Heath because the painful third drug likely was injected into Diaz’s body without the benefit of the sedative.
The vein in the second arm also broke, perhaps preventing Diaz from suffering severe burning pain from the third drug, Heath said.
“Thank God the other IV wasn’t working either,” Heath said. “The people doing this could not have thought through the contingencies.”
Heath said witness accounts that Diaz was breathing “like a fish out of water” lead him to believe the drug causing a painful feeling of paralysis took effect before the painkiller.
“That is a classic sign — that fish-out-of-water look — that the person is partially paralyzed and struggling for breath,” Heath said.
He added, “Mr Diaz, in my opinion, was not properly anesthetized.”
The drugs eventually were absorbed from Diaz’s flesh into his bloodstream, but at a very slow rate. It’s unknown just how fast each drug was absorbed because nobody has tested how rapidly those drugs are absorbed through human tissue.
State officials who participated in the execution have testified that they saw no evidence of pain, in contrast to press witnesses whose published accounts told of Diaz grimacing, squinting and coughing. A capital defense attorney who witnessed the execution also said Diaz appeared to be in pain.
Whether Diaz felt pain is important because the U.S. Constitution forbids the government from exposing any prisoner to cruel and unusual punishment.
Blood samples taken during and immediately after the execution could indicate if an inmate experienced pain. But in most cases, including with Diaz, blood samples aren’t taken until an autopsy the next day. By this time the drug levels have broken down.
Heath told the panel that if it wants to carry out executions by lethal injection, it should have doctors at the inmate’s gurney to troubleshoot any problems. That creates a Catch-22 for the state because medical associations forbid doctors from participating in executions.
The panel was formed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush after Diaz’s death, and no other executions have been scheduled.
The panel is expected to meet again Monday in Tampa, at which point it may hear from a doctor who has testified on behalf of state governments that use lethal injection procedures similar to Florida’s.
Bullet in the base of the skull, then harvest the organs, sell them, and give part of the proceeds to the victims.
Don't harvest prisoners until a match shows up and the organs are needed, then do it at once.
In the meantime, every prisoner who isn't infected with something should have blood donations extacted every six weeks, plasma extracted every third day, bone marrow extracted when needed. No prisoner should die with two kidneys. The first should be taken upon the failure of the last appeal. Two thirds of a healthy liver grows back. Skin is useful for skin graft victims.
Death row inmates are properly understood as livestock, medical livestock.
Nothing personal, no need for excess pain. Just keep them very healthy, with tissues flowing, until their heart or lungs are a match, then a bullet to the brain stem and some deserving patient gets a new lease on life.
Efficient, sensible, just, utilitarian and Chinese.
And to that I'll add "I don't care."
Not this crap again
My, what drama. 100% BS drama.
There would be no "splashing" at all. Does this doc think people are hollow, that if you miss a vein the IV fluid would just "splash" down the inside of your hollow arm?
This "chemical burning" BS is just that as well. The first drug is a seditive, which if missed, would be absorbed through the lymph system instead and just take longer. It would still knock him out in a few minutes, rather than a few seconds. The rest of the drugs would do their job as well, as they did, just take longer. He never felt a thing, unfortunately.
Why not just fly the criminal up to 12000 feet and drop him out. Death would be instantaneous upon impact.
How do you "botch" a killing? What, the condemned ends up surviving?
LOL you put a lot of thought in to that didnt you?
Shooting or hanging is much easier and quicker. Lucky Florida didn't starve him to death like they did to innocent Terry Schiavo.
He died so I say it worked just fine. I really don't give a flip if he suffered or not. Call me cruel but I don't care.
He's dead right? Looks to me like the doc's numbers are a bit off.
Hmmm...
Correct on the first, definitely not correct on the second....
And, don't call me a surgeon....I know who both my parents are.
Here's a solution....
Start a Central Venous Line in all people to be executed...it will be much less likely to infiltrate.
Entirely too much hand wringing is going on over this issue IMO. I can't understand why they can't dope an inmate to be executed with barbiturates or whatever and then dump a load of cyanide into them. They'd be el deado, no argument.
I have said for years that however someone kills another person is how they die... and televise it. If they burn someone to death... they get burned to death.
They shoot someone in the gut and that person dies... they get gut shot... and put it on TV.
They starve someone to death, they get starved to death.. and televise it.
I predict only about 1 or 2 per state would have sentence carried out and I predict a murder rate of near zero in under a year.
Botched? Is he dead or not?
If he's dead, which was their intention, then it is not botched, it is an actual execution.
Or am I missing something?
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