Top 5 Botched Executions of 2011-- in the USA

Today is annual World Day against the death penalty.  Amnesty International weighs in.   Here is a site that covers it all.     The European Union issues new call for worldwide abolition. For full historical context for this, and a probe of current trends, see my new e-book, Dead Reckoning (just $2.99).

Now here is an excerpt from new article at Reprieve on 5 botched lethal injections this year, right here in America.

1) BRANDON RHODE

September 27, 2010: Brandon Rhode is executed in Georgia, but his eyes remain

wide open. Doubts are raised over the way sodium thiopental was administered.

Dr Mark Heath declares in an affidavit: “If the thiopental was inadequately

effective Mr. Rhode’s death would certainly have been agonizing... There is no

dispute that the asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning

sensation caused by potassium would be agonizing...”

2) JEFFREY LANDRIGAN

October 10, 2010: It takes several minutes for Jeffrey Landrigan to die in

Arizona. He is executed with sodium thiopental sold by fly-by-night British

drug company Dream Pharma. It appeared the anaesthetic may not have worked.
It took over 10 minutes for him to be pronounced dead.

3) EMANUEL HAMMOND

January 27, 2011: Emanuel Hammond is executed. Hammond closes his eyes, and

then re-opens them later. Professor Sheri Johnson, who watched particularly

intently because she knew there were doubts over the British thiopental’s

efficacy, said “he closed his eyes perhaps ten seconds after the drugs started.

But then, some time later, he opened them again”. Professor Johnson added that

this was quite unlike three thiopental executions she had seen before, when the

prisoners closed their eyes very quickly and remained “totally still”,

apparently in a coma. Josh Green, a reporter with the Gwinnett Daily Post,

confirms that Hammond first closed, and then re-opened his eyes some time after

receiving the thiopental, while Jill Rand, a Florida nurse who became Hammond’s

pen friend, said she saw him move his lips.

4) EDDIE DUVAL POWELL

June 15 2011: Eddie Duval Powell is executed by lethal injection in Alabama.

Powell closes his eyes. He then opens them again later. Seemingly confused and

startled, he jerked his head to one side and began breathing heavily, his chest

rose and contracted.

5) ROY BLANKENSHIP

June 23, 2011: Roy Willard Blankenship is put to sleep by sodium thiopental,

but dies with his eyes wide open. In a sworn affidavit, Dr David Waisel,

Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, states: “…I can

say with certainty that Mr. [Roy] Blankenship was inadequately anesthetized
and was conscious for approximately the first 3 minutes of the execution and that

he suffered greatly."

(source: Reprieve)

*