Ohio execution on hold after vein troubles

:cry: I am without words.

Inmate gets one-week reprieve after problems with lethal injection process

"LUCASVILLE, Ohio - Gov. Ted Strickland ordered a weeklong reprieve for a condemned inmate on Tuesday after the Ohio execution team had problems finding usable veins for the lethal injection process.

Executioners were unable for more than two hours to find veins that would accept fluid from an IV without collapsing for 53-year-old Romell Broom, who was sentenced to die for the rape and slaying of a 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in 1984.

No Ohio governor has issued a similar last-minute reprieve since the state resumed executions in 1999.

The team began working on Broom, in a holding cell 17 steps from the execution chamber, at about 2 p.m., four hours after his execution was originally scheduled. That initial delay was due to a final federal appeals request.

After the team spent nearly an hour trying to find a workable vein, Broom tried to help them bring him a quicker death. He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers. The execution team was able to access a vein, but it collapsed when technicians tried to insert saline fluid.

Broom then became visibly distressed, turning over on his back and covering his face with both hands. His torso heaved up and down and his feet shook, as he appeared to be crying. He wiped his eyes and was handed a roll of toilet paper, which he used to wipe his brow. He sat up at the end of the bed and talked with his execution team..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32864140/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Go through that...then have it have to go through it all again.

I would think that unimaginable stress of making that walk is made slightly bearable by knowing it'll all be over in a few minutes.

Hell for the convicted, hell for the victims family, hell for the convict's family.

Even the executioners.

even though it's the end of you I guess you just want it over with and not drug out.

... my father (he died July 21st after living 17 years with HIV -- insert "get tested" PSA here) had similar trouble with his veins. It was due to IV bathtub methamphetamine abuse, but in order for his doctors to be able to draw blood he had to have a port placed surgically.

If they are unable to access his veins for lethal injection, can the state force him to undergo a procedure to put in a central line or port? I honestly don't think so, if there are questions about whether they can force a person to take psychotropic medication...

If there is no question that this man is guilty of the crime he was accused of (DNA testing, and I mean modern DNA testing not what was available in 1984), he is one of those for whom I feel the death penalty would be appropriate. I think it's crueler to keep a person imprisoned the rest of their lives, and I wouldn't want a person like that back out in society. We don't have penal colonies anymore, so... but that would have to be truly awful. A slow painful death is not appropriate, even if it fulfills the human need for revenge.