Condemned man takes nearly 2 hours to die in botched execution in Arizona

Wood’s final legal recourse, the U.S. Supreme Court, on Tuesday refused to hear his appeal, clearing the way for officials in Arizona proceed with his execution.

The U.S. really needs to look into how it takes the life of those condemned. The Court tried to wash its hands, but now it has blood on it.

Medieval.

If a country insists that some of its citizens should be executed then try to do it humanely and quickly. This is barbaric and reflects very badly on the American "justice" system. And yet there no doubt will be posters reminding us that he gave no mercy to his victims etc., but two evil acts do not make it right.

The U.S. really needs to look into how it takes the life of those condemned.

Yeah, communist America has a major problem on its hands.

Sorry U.S. but you’re indeed doing it wrong. If the death penalty cannot be applied correctly if indeed that’s possible, then it’s time to abolish it.

Grotesque.

I hope those lustily cheering for the death penalty would one day be able to witness such gruesome scenes.

The US needs to ramp up executions. Thousands of cases intentionally dragged out for specious reasons. And a federal judge in California recently halted executions because they weren't carrying them out speedily!

Thousands of patients undergo anesthesia every day. They could just put a convicted killer under anesthesia, then it wouldn't matter which way he was finally dispatched.

Without this distraction, and with streamlined evidentiary procedures, maybe death penalty sentences would finally get up to some reasonable amount beyond the current miniscule numbers.

'I hope those lustily cheering for the death penalty would one day be able to witness such gruesome scenes.'

No doubt some would enjoy it.

Guillotine!

wonder how long his victims suffered for.

Barbaric and sick in the head. About sums up the U.S justice system really.

Why is this so difficult? surely if ststes are so wedded to killing people they can just shoot or hang or give 1 chemical that kills quickly?

The death penalty is barbaric. Most people know this.

In the continuing search for a humane way of extinguishing life, society has run the gamut.

Birds of a feather; some tend to lament the never ending heart bleedings of the victim’s loved ones, which obviously has no news value and is simply ignored. By the way, what happened to euthanasia? Thought the debate was about ethics, now they tell us they have forgotten about the method?

"Cruel and unusual," definitely. Please don't say "he got what he deserved" or anything like that.

This bungled legal murder led to doctors and prison staff being forced to inflict barbarity over a period of two hours. It doesn't matter who or what their 'subject' was. They were forced to suffer.

Some might say, 'Hey, they probably enjoyed it, why else would they choose to do that job?'

Not so.

New Jersey’s last executioner, who also served as an executioner for New York, committed suicide. So did New York’s prior executioner.

Executioners and wardens in Mississippi and Alabama all attributed their mental and physical health problems to their involvement with lethal injection.

In many states, the government offers psychological counseling to the execution team because of the psychological trauma of participating the execution of another human being.

http://mtabolitionco.org/issues/secondary-trauma/

I understand 100% and will certainly do it myself if something like that would happens in my family, I will then face the society's consequences. However, to me you are talking about vengeance, we can feel it in the emotional speech, and vengeance is not Justice,

Hi, Cleo. If you want to make an argument that the method of execution is inhumane and immoral, go right ahead. If you want to say the death penalty is vengeance served on a platter, go ahead.

But you do that to the families and the friends of the victim. Go right up to them, and say, this murderer is horrible, but the death penalty is wrong. We should (then explain what you think should happen to this disgusting human being: rehab, mental care, manual labor). You tell those innocent victims what you think should happen to the person that destroyed their lives.

Everyone here is lamenting the horrible nature of the US justice system, go right ahead. But there is no way the first thing I'm going to think about when reading this story before I think about the innocent people is the faulty method of execution. Guillotine, firing squad, let the victims decide.

turbotsat

...and with streamlined evidentiary procedures, maybe death penalty sentences would finally get up to some reasonable amount beyond the current miniscule numbers.

Streamlined evidentiary procedures? You have got to be kidding me. So you want the number of wrongfully convicted and executed to be higher than it already is when even one is one too many? You must be mad.

harvey pekar

Stop looking at his execution of your distant high horses and see what from the family's and friend's perspectives.

Right, because the perspective of those affected directly and emotionally by the crime is so very rational. Theirs should be the LAST perspective one should be considering when examining the ethics of capital punishment. If we did approach each case like this from their perspective as you insist, then things would certainly be a lot simpler when we can simply skip the entire judicial process and jump to the execution/revenge=justice phase.

Ok, for everyone who is against the death penalty, what would have been justice for Joseph Wood and those like him who are 100 % guilty of multiple murders? What do you think should have happened to him?

And if God forbid, you're a weeping friend or mourning family member, what would you want? What would you think about? Well, I hope this person finds Jesus and ends up giving lectures at schools? Or I hope this person doesn't feel any pain when he dies. Or let's hope he gets his Master's in Business Administration while locked up.

If you want to make an argument that the method of execution is inhumane and immoral, go right ahead. If you want to say the death penalty is vengeance served on a platter, go ahead.

Both arguments have been made many times over, by people far more eloquent than me.

But you do that to the families and the friends of the victim.

Sorry, but nothing - nothing - is going to make things easier for those people. Adding more barbarity to the trauma they have already suffered serves no purpose except the empty, cancerous one of revenge.

And you still haven't explained why it's OK for the state to traumatise its medical/prison/welfare staff to the extent that they suffer mental illness even to the point of suicide.

for everyone who is against the death penalty, what would have been justice for Joseph Wood and those like him who are 100 % guilty of multiple murders?

Lock them up.

Agree more with harvey pekar on this story. As barbaric as you may find it, he did break the law and punished under it by the people and laws the public have accepted and to this date not changed and thus he was to die.

'Ok, for everyone who is against the death penalty, what would have been justice for Joseph Wood and those like him who are 100 % guilty of multiple murders? What do you think should have happened to him?'

Civilised societies choose not to execute people. In 2013, the world's most enthusiastic executioners were China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the US and Somalia. Take a long look at those countries and decide if this is the kind of company the US should be keeping. As for '100% guilty', are you confident that an innocent person hasn't been executed ( murdered ) in the US? Keep people who are a danger to the public away from the public. The US disgraces itself worldwide with the kind of bloodlust found in dictatorships, theocracies, failed states and banana republics.

Family members of Wood’s victims said they had no problems with the way the execution was carried out. “This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, let’s worry about the drugs,” said Richard Brown, the brother-in-law of Debbie Dietz, who was 29 when she was killed in 1989. “Why didn’t they give him a bullet, why didn’t we give him Drano?” Wood looked at the family members as he delivered his final words, saying he was thankful for Jesus Christ as his savior. At one point, he smiled at them, which angered the family.

Put yourself, there, what would you want as a family member? No one answers that.

If the family is okay with it, so am I. And how do we stop the mental anguish of those involved, let the family push the button.

And what would should have happened to Joseph Wood? Lock him up? That's a proper solution? Why? What's the point? What's the endgame there? Get rid of him. There is no reason why he deserves to live.

And if it's the method of execution, lethal injection, how about the guillotine? Doesn't need to be French Revolution public square massacres, let the family pull the lever.

An eye for an eye? Is America so backward that it still uses biblical teachings as a guide to the law and the way to treat those convicted of crimes? Death is an easy way out... and as others have said, it's more about vengeance than justice. When you use revenge as an excuse for killing prisoners you lose the moral high ground.

Readers, please do not use this thread to cheer for a botched execution.

A rope would have been more effective.

@Mods I certainly don't agree with Harvey Pekar's opinion but I can't see any cheering on his part.

Moderator: Those posts were removed.

Hope this helps those who are pro-execution to try and think a little bit.

"Wood’s final legal recourse, the U.S. Supreme Court, on Tuesday refused to hear his appeal, clearing the way for officials in Arizona proceed with his execution."

If Wood's has any relatives, they should sue.

Convicted in 1989. I believe in the American justice system. Innocent until proven guilty beyond doubt.

25 years of relative freedom. Hmmmm. 1 hour and 40 minutes of an asthma kind of attack and death. Not bad. I am sure he thought about what he was convicted for.

The guillotine is the least painless and most fool-proof method.

And yet there no doubt will be posters reminding us that he gave no mercy to his victims etc., but two evil acts do not make it right.

It doesn't make it right, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it either.

I think that Cleo makes an excellent point. The executioner must have been distraught, but legally his hands were tied.

The executioner isn't some faceless hooded monster, they're trained medical professionals, who got into that line of work because they wanted to help people, and were then forced by a lousy economy into a job that has no right to exist, a perversion of everything that they stand for, using medicine to kill.

If they're going to have people executed in the U.S. then have it done by a military firing squad, and do it live on TV, because make no mistake, EVERY American of voting age in that state shares the responsibility for the death penalty, and EVERYONE should have the obligation to watch it done.

Why not try Fugu. A last meal with out unnecessary ingredients.

I think a previous poster asked a good question.

Why not use anesthesia? Then give a very lethal injection that would normally hurt but won't since the person would be under.

I believe anesthesia is the first of the three drugs they give in the 'cocktail'.

About vengeance? Justice? an eye for an eye? Nah, those are for law books, in Seattle streets or Tokyo streets, it‘s determent, it makes criminals, those really bad ones, think twice.

"Wood, 55, was sentenced to die for the 1989 shooting deaths of his 29-year-old former girlfriend Debbie Dietz and her father Gene, 55."

"The death penalty is barbaric"

As barbaric as shooting people to death before a trial?

It sure costs a lot of taxpayer money to keep barbaric murderers locked up for decades.

Best for US to go back to the western practice of hanging or the firing squad.

Disgusting and barbaric. No country that has a death penalty can call itself civilised.

According to the Guardian article, he WAS sedated. If this happened in a medical context, the physicians would be telling the family, he's not in pain, it's just his body reacting. Because his attorneys need to make hay out of it they're not going to mention that aspect.

And apparently the victims' family agrees with the outcome. Wood is not the victim.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/arizona-lawyer-independent-inquiry-woods-two-hour-execution ... After the execution, Debra Dietz's sister spoke to the Associated Press: “What I saw today with him being executed, it is nothing compared to what happened on August 7, 1989,” Jeanne Brown said. “What's excruciating is seeing your father lying there in a pool of blood, seeing your sister lying in a pool of blood.” ... Mauricio Morin, a Tucson journalist who witnessed the execution, told the Guardian that Wood had appeared to be sedated with his eyes closed. But he said in an email that Wood was “gulping or gasping for air. His stomach moved at times while the gulping/gasping for air as if one would while breathing laying down.” ...

Well if your going to keep having these types of results and you want to continue doing executions you might as well bring back the firing squad or the guillotine.

... patients able to speak after such episodes do not report any distress associated with the breathing ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyne%E2%80%93Stokes_respiration

Cheyne-Stokes respiration is an abnormal pattern of breathing characterized by progressively deeper and sometimes faster breathing, followed by a gradual decrease that results in a temporary stop in breathing called an apnea. The pattern repeats, with each cycle usually taking 30 seconds to 2 minutes.[1] It is an oscillation of ventilation between apnea and hyperpnea with a crescendo-diminuendo pattern, and is associated with changing serum partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide.[2] ...

Hospice personnel sometimes document the presence of Cheyne-Stokes breathing as a patient nears death, and report that patients able to speak after such episodes do not report any distress associated with the breathing, although it is sometimes disturbing to the family. ...

This guy was a very bad egg. He did not show any remorse. Don't get me wrong, I would not want to witness this execution. It must have been terrible. But his crimes were unforgivable.

Sorry, but nothing - nothing - is going to make things easier for those people.

Curious Cleo, how do you know that?

@MarkG:

And how long did the victims suffer? What about the family of the murdered victims. How long did they suffer?

Obviously you are not looking at this the right way. You are showing compassion to the victims instead of what is most important to the radical Left - the precious rights of the heinous killers that caused so much death, pain, and suffering in the first place.

I suspect there will be many from the far Left fringe ready at their keyboards to fix your twisted way of thinking. Remember it is the killers, murderers, and rapists that deserve our concern and pity - not those nameless and faceless dead people and their whimpering friends and families.

Condemned man takes nearly 2 hours to die in botched execution in Arizona

This is one of the major sticking points with the Death Penalty, and cases like this are often cited by those who oppose it. I once heard (more than 10 years ago now mind) of a Death Row inmate who's initial method of execution (hanging) had failed, because the man was too tall to be hung (that's how I remember the story. If I could find it again, I'd post the link as verification). This is not the first example of a botched execution, and it definitely will not be the last. What's particularly bad here, is that the lethal injection was administered using an "experimental" cocktail. Which makes me wonder: Why are we experimenting with new drug mixtures? What's wrong with the existing ones that have been used for years without (as far as I'm aware at least) any issues such as this? There is another point to this which strikes me as unethical: That they are using this new mixture and experimenting with it on a convict. Murderer or not, Woods is still a Human being. To conduct medical experiments on a Human without consent, and without transparency, is unethical. Arizona, and indeed every state or country that implements the Death Penalty, should seriously consider suspending all "experimental" methods of execution. Using inmates as guinea pigs, regardless of their crime, is wrong.

Of course, the pro-Death Penalty crowd will take exception to my comment and attack me for it, suggesting that I'm sympathising for a murderer or what have you. I have no strong opinions either way about the Death Penalty in general, but when their are cases such as this one, I find myself needing to speak my mind, as I'm sure many people do.

What's wrong with the existing ones that have been used for years without (as far as I'm aware at least) any issues such as this?

Basically the makers are a European company and the EU rules or laws prohibit the exportation of drugs that are to be used in execution and of course the US government can't just steal the patent or design on the drugs as that would violate patent/copyright laws. As a result the US has to come up with new drug cocktails as the supply of the previous, or as you call it existing cocktail, has been depleted. So now the question is if they can't come up with a drug cocktail does this mean they stop all executions or do they move onto old school forms of execution like firing squad, guillotine, hanging, gas chamber, electric chair. There is also debate about whether or not the executed are actually suffering claiming that what you are seeing is just the sedative at work and muscles "spasm" while they are unconscious. I don't know how much truth there is to that though.

"The EU's uncompromising stance has set off a cat-and-mouse game, with U.S. corrections departments devising new ways to carry out lethal injections only to hit updated export restrictions within months.

"Our political task is to push for an abolition of the death penalty, not facilitate its procedure," said Barba Lochbihler, chairwoman of the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights.

Europe's tough stance has caused U.S. states to start experimenting with new drug mixtures, even though convicts' lawyers and activists argue they increase the risk of painful prolonged death and may violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

The U.S. execution dilemma goes back to 2005, when the EU restricted exports of goods "for the purpose of capital punishment or for the purpose of torture." That ban includes items such as electric chairs and lethal injection systems.

The drug shortage then started biting in 2010 when Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a sedative that is part of the normal three-drug mixture, stopped production. A few months later, Hospira dropped plans to produce it in Italy because the government there asked for guarantees that it would never be used in executions.

States in 2011 switched to pentobarbital, but Denmark-based Lundbeck Inc., the drug's only U.S.-licensed maker, faced a public backlash and quickly said it would put the medication off-limits for capital punishment through a tightly controlled distribution system.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/europe-origin-chronic-us-execution-dilemma

We don't relay know if he was suffering, maybe he wish it last longer.

He was SNORING.

http://www.abc6onyourside.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/arizona-inmate-dies-2-hours-after-execution-begins-33599.shtml#.U9HAEKb_NFY

Attorney general's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, who witnessed the execution, said Wood "went to sleep, and looked to be snoring."

"This was my first execution, and I was surprised by how peaceful it was," Grisham said in an email. "There was absolutely no snorting or gasping for air."

Oh how folks forget the suffering of the victims. I am amazed how folks seem to forget the suffering of this lowlifes victims. He murdered a woman and a man and got what he deserved.

If this lowlife had done that to any of my family members I would have gladly paid a pound of gold to see him suffer as he died.

Pity shouldn't be held for this lowlifes, pity should be for his victims.

That being said, if you break the laws of any nation and are sent to the gallows, well then, let the justice of the people be served, be it right or wrong.

Yes, if we actually do agee with the death penalty and think evil criminals should pay for their crimes with their lives, no matter how long it takes, sorry this moderator DOES NOT want that kind of opinion here! Let us see how long before this liberal, feeling sorry for the CRIMINAL moderator and NOT caring about the MURDERED VICTIMS moderator takes to delete my comment! It is stupid to feel sorry for these evil criminals! The USA is not perfect and sooner or later these evil criminals must pay, why is 2 hours such a big deal????