CNN: Florida execution was botched

[Ex Lion Tamer]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/15/diaz.execution.ap/index.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. It would ironic, if not predictable, if his family sued Florida for

"wrongful death" as it wasn't a humane or painless execution. Throw in a civil rights Section 1968 action on top of that and you're talking about crime really paying.

[Judi Lynn]

2. This is probably a tiny Christmas gift to the a-holes of the country.

Nothing could cheer them up like the thought of some murderer suffering over a long period of time. I'm aware there are some who would enjoy the thought of breaking with tradition and allowing capital punishment for a broader spectrum of crimes.

They never question themselves, do they? They arm themselves to the teeth, hide inside their little arsenal/fortresses, indulge their lowest instincts in liberally applied road rage, treat others like trash, yet, if they somehow slip past committing any crime which can get them arrested, they deign to instruct the world on the shortcomings of criminals, and issue warnings about coddling them, while feeling damned lofty about themselves.

Republicans. Nothing but.

I've seen them all my life. More closely than I can stand. There's not much to be said in support of adult-sized people who refuse to grow up, who rejoice in the suffering of others.

A botched execution is not an occassion for a party.

[n2doc]

3. There are some who would love to bring back the middle ages

and torture to death prisoners in a public arena. I am sure Glen Beck, Rushbo, Hannity and the rest of that crowd would fight it out to be the "play by play" announcer.

[John Gauger]

4. Again?

How many times does Florida have to torture a man to death before a court issues an injuction against all future exectutions in that state? JEB's regime has botched, what, thirty executions in the past ten years? These guys are fucking criminals.

[teryang]

5. The assembly line of death, having it both ways...

Governor elect Christ was bragging just last week about the record number of death row inmates being put to death recently and how hard he and JEBfraud were working toward this end.

Now JEBfraud postures as some sort of thoughtful executioner, just a week later, as if he's some kind of statesman.

Anyone who has ever tried a criminal case has to realize what a problematic, political, and unreliable procedure it is. In Florida you can be put to death based upon the testimony of a single eyewitness to the charged capital offense. Eyewitness testimony has been scientificly proven to be extremely unreliable. Florida does not allow expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification in court. Most juries frankly are as dumb as a box of rocks and believe anything the police tell them. Florida rushes life felonies to court, ready for trial or not, it's the bum's rush of injustice.

The jury trial is better than anything else we have to adjudicate with, but that's not saying much in Florida. The republican strategy in Florida is to cut the costs of criminal justice to the bone at the due process end, ramp up the prison beds. It's a corporate strategy of "productivity" where human rights get flushed down the toilet.

[greccogirl]

6. I thought so. It simply isn't this hard to put someone to sleep. So now

the question is why isn't someone competent who knows how to do a proper IV doing this?

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TroglodyteScholar]

9. Because no one trained in medicine would be willing to intentionally kill a patient? n/t

[Nikia]

10. That seems to be the problem

If medical personnel were in this business, lethal injection truly could be a painless, traumaless way to go aside from the thing about the prisioner knowing he is going to die. They could get the needle in right the first time and they could use better drugs, calculated for the patient.
We say that China is barbaric for harvesting executed patients organs, but it is not any more traumatic for the executed than anyone else undergoing surgery who dies on the operating table.
If we as a society agree that it is unethical for medical personnel to be involved in an execution, we should stop pretending that lethal injection is an easy medical death rather than potentially more of a torture than many other methods of execution.

[Pharlo]

8. I have never seen a human put down,

but I have had to have a lot of my pets put down through the years due to old age and system failure. And, I cannot believe that after having problems with injections in the past that these idiots didn't figure out the following: if you put an IV into a vein, you KNOW you are in a vein - eliminates guess work, then inject the drugs into the IV. You don't have to be a medical expert to figure that out.

I know this because when I had to have one of my dogs put down due to liver failure, the vet was VERY new. She explained to me that she wanted to be certain it was done as quickly and humanely as possible and that she didn't want to make any mistakes. So, she said what she wanted to do was put an IV in his front paw then inject the drugs into the IV.

As I stated, I have seen quite a few animals put down, but that is the quickest I have EVER seen an animal pass away. He was dead before she had all of the cocktail into the IV.

And, since he was in end stage liver failure (they may have been able to prolong his life another two weeks using extraordinary measures), I too would be highly sceptical of the 'liver damage' argument.

So, even if a medical professional refused to assist, the use of the IV would have eliminated the guesswork for a non medical professional.

If, however, they were using an IV, and couldn't figure out they weren't in a vein, they deserve to get their asses sued - for incompetence if nothing else. I'm not a medical professional, and even I know that much.

However, it is possible that putting a human down differs enough from other animals (cats, dogs, horses) that I could be completely wrong.

[jmowreader]

11. They use TWO IVs, not just one

Lots of people have never seen an IV needle. It's not just a "needle"--there's a Teflon sleeve called a cannula around it, and the cannula, not the needle, is what remains in the patient at the end of the procedure. The 10th Mountain Division medics who taught me to start IVs (in a five-minute block of instruction in Florida when they were worried about troops getting dehydrated and taught lots of NCOs to do this) said to push the needle through the skin, then push real gentle with your gloved hand at the back of the needle just until some blood got on your glove, then stop pushing the needle in. You then work the cannula up into the vein and withdraw the needle before connecting the rest of the infusion set. Medical people who start lots of IVs do this real fast, but we only got to start one IV apiece...on a NCO who was going to turn around and start one on me...so they taught us a slower way, a more painful way, that would put the cannula into the vein basically every time you did one.

What I'm really confused over here is how they got the cannula in. It'll slip into the vein, but veins are hollow. Muscle, which is what they hit on this prisoner, is not hollow. About the only way I can think of to get the cannula into muscle is to shove the whole needle--they're about six inches long--into the guy's arm then withdraw the needle. If they got really fucking pissed because the cannula wouldn't go into the vein and just shoved real hard on it, yeah that would work...I can't even imagine the pain this guy felt while they were inserting the needles. And then he got an IM injection of pancuronium bromide? What is this, the new execution protocol for Abu Ghraib?

[Judi Lynn]

12. Botched execution likely painful, doctors say

Botched execution likely painful, doctors say
Some speculate this week’s lethal injection caused slow, excruciating death
Updated: 9:29 p.m. CT Dec 16, 2006

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Death penalty foes have warned for years of the possibility that an inmate being executed by lethal injection could remain conscious, experiencing severe pain as he slowly dies.

That day may have arrived.

Angel Nieves Diaz, a career criminal executed for killing a Miami topless bar manager 27 years ago, was given a rare second dose of deadly chemicals as he took more than twice the usual time to succumb. Needles that were supposed to inject drugs into the 55-year-old man’s veins were instead pushed all the way through the blood vessels into surrounding soft tissue. A medical examiner said he had chemical burns on both arms.

“It really sounds like he was tortured to death,” said Jonathan Groner, associate professor of surgery at the Ohio State Medical School, a surgeon who opposes the death penalty and writes frequently about lethal injection. “My impression is that it would cause an extreme amount of pain.”

The error in Diaz’s execution led Gov. Jeb Bush to suspend all executions Friday. Separately, a federal judge extended a moratorium on executions in California, declaring that its method of lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
(snip/...)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16241245/


Andres Leighton / AP

Death penalty opponents cry during a vigil in colonial
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006
protesting the execution of Puerto Rican death row inmate
Angel Nieves Diaz, 55, at the Florida State Prison for
the murder of a Miami club manager during a robbery in 1979.
7:52 p.m. ET, 12/13/06

[MasonJar]

13. The Bush family specifically and generally are among the most

entrenched criminals known to society. And yet they are consistently the ones who get to pull the lever on the rest of us.