Botched Executions

It is esti­mat­ed that 3% of U.S. exe­cu­tions in the peri­od from 1890 to 2010 were botched. In the 2014 book, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty, Austin Sarat, a pro­fes­sor of jurispru­dence and polit­i­cal sci­ence at Amherst College, describes the his­to­ry of flawed exe­cu­tions in the U.S. dur­ing that peri­od. Sarat reports that over those 120 years, 8,776 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed and 276 of those exe­cu­tions (3.15%) went wrong in some way. Lethal injec­tion had the high­est rate of botched exe­cu­tions. In his book, he defines a botched exe­cu­tion as follows: 

Botched exe­cu­tions occur when there is a break­down in, or depar­ture from, the ​“pro­to­col” for a par­tic­u­lar method of exe­cu­tion. The pro­to­col can be estab­lished by the norms, expec­ta­tions, and adver­tised virtues of each method or by the government’s offi­cial­ly adopt­ed exe­cu­tion guide­lines. Botched exe­cu­tions are ​“those involv­ing unan­tic­i­pat­ed prob­lems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnec­es­sary agony for the pris­on­er or that reflect gross incom­pe­tence of the exe­cu­tion­er.” Examples of such prob­lems include, among oth­er things, inmates catch­ing fire while being elec­tro­cut­ed, being stran­gled dur­ing hang­ings (instead of hav­ing their necks bro­ken), and being admin­is­tered the wrong dosages of spe­cif­ic drugs for lethal injections. 

Source: Austin Sarat, ​“Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty” (Stanford Univ. Press 2014).

A report in the Salt Lake City Tribune takes a dif­fer­ent view of the sug­ges­tion that there have been no botched exe­cu­tions by fir­ing squad since 1890. The paper reports that in September 1951, a Utah fir­ing squad shot Eliseo J. Mares in the hip and abdomen and that it was ​“sev­er­al min­utes” before he was declared dead. Utah’s May 16, 1879 fir­ing-squad exe­cu­tion of Wallace Wilkerson also was botched. See Botched Executions in American History.

Examples of Post-Furman Botched Executions

List com­piled by:

Prof. Michael L. Radelet
University of Colorado
Radelet@​Colorado.​edu

Last update: February 28, 2024

NOTE: The below is not intend­ed to be a com­pre­hen­sive cat­a­logue of botched exe­cu­tions, but sim­ply a list­ing of exam­ples that are well-known. There are 61 exe­cu­tions or attempt­ed exe­cu­tions list­ed: 2 by asphyx­i­a­tion, 10 by elec­tro­cu­tion, and 49 by lethal injec­tion, includ­ing six failed exe­cu­tions that were halt­ed when exe­cu­tion per­son­nel were unable to set an IV line. By ​“botched,” it means those involv­ing unan­tic­i­pat­ed prob­lems or delays that caused at least arguably, unnec­es­sary agony for the pris­on­er or that reflect gross incom­pe­tence of the exe­cu­tion­er” (Borg & Radelet, 2004:144). For more infor­ma­tion on the def­i­n­i­tion of ​“botched” and oth­er method­olog­i­cal deci­sions, see Marian J. Borg & Michael L. Radelet, On Botched Executions, pp. 143 – 68 in Peter Hodgkinson and William Schabas (eds.), CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: STRATEGIES FOR ABOLITION. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2004).

1. August 10, 1982. Virginia. Frank J. Coppola. Electrocution. Although no media rep­re­sen­ta­tives wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion and no details were ever released by the Virginia Department of Corrections, an attor­ney who was present lat­er stat­ed that it took two 55-sec­ond jolts of elec­tric­i­ty to kill Coppola. The sec­ond jolt pro­duced the odor and siz­zling sound of burn­ing flesh, and Coppola’s head and leg caught on fire. Smoke filled the death cham­ber from floor to ceil­ing with a smoky haze.[1]

2. April 22, 1983. Alabama. John Evans. Electrocution. After the first jolt of elec­tric­i­ty, sparks and flames erupt­ed from the elec­trode attached to Evans’s leg. The elec­trode burst from the strap hold­ing it in place and caught on fire. Smoke and sparks also came out from under the hood in the vicin­i­ty of Evans’s left tem­ple. Two physi­cians entered the cham­ber and found a heart­beat. The elec­trode was reat­tached to his leg, and anoth­er jolt of elec­tric­i­ty was applied. This result­ed in more smoke and burn­ing flesh. Again the doc­tors found a heart­beat. Ignoring the pleas of Evans’s lawyer, a third jolt of elec­tric­i­ty was applied. The exe­cu­tion took 14 min­utes and left Evans’s body charred and smoldering.[2]

3. September 2, 1983. Mississippi. Jimmy Lee Gray. Asphyxiation. Officials had to clear the room eight min­utes after the gas was released when Gray’s des­per­ate gasps for air repulsed wit­ness­es. His attor­ney, Dennis Balske of Montgomery, Alabama, crit­i­cized state offi­cials for clear­ing the room when the inmate was still alive. Said not­ed death penal­ty defense attor­ney David Bruck, ​“Jimmy Lee Gray died bang­ing his head against a steel pole in the gas cham­ber while the reporters count­ed his moans (eleven, accord­ing to the Associated Press).”[3] Later it was revealed that the exe­cu­tion­er, Barry Bruce, was drunk.[4]

4. December 12, 1984. Georgia. Alpha Otis Stephens. Electrocution. ​“The first charge of elec­tric­i­ty … failed to kill him, and he strug­gled to breathe for eight min­utes before a sec­ond charge car­ried out his death sentence.”[5] After the first two-minute pow­er surge, there was a six-minute pause so his body could cool before physi­cians could exam­ine him (and declare that anoth­er jolt was need­ed). During that six-minute inter­val, Stephens took 23 breaths. A Georgia prison offi­cial said, ​“Stephens was just not a con­duc­tor” of electricity.[6]

5. March 13, 1985. Texas. Stephen Peter Morin. Lethal Injection. The Associated Press report­ed that, because of Morin’s his­to­ry of drug abuse, the exe­cu­tion tech­ni­cians were forced to probe both of Morin’s arms and one of his legs with nee­dles for near­ly 45 min­utes before they found a suit­able vein.[7]

6. October 16, 1985. Indiana. William E. Vandiver. Electrocution. After the first admin­is­tra­tion of 2,300 volts, Vandiver was still breath­ing. The exe­cu­tion even­tu­al­ly took 17 min­utes and five jolts of electricity.[8] Vandiver’s attor­ney, Herbert Shaps, wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion and observed smoke and the smell of burn­ing. He called the exe­cu­tion ​“out­ra­geous.” The Department of Corrections admit­ted the exe­cu­tion ​“did not go accord­ing to plan.”[9]

7. August 20, 1986. Texas. Randy Woolls. Lethal Injection. A drug addict, Woolls helped the exe­cu­tion tech­ni­cians find a use­able vein for the execution.[10]

8. June 24, 1987. Texas. Elliot Rod Johnson. Lethal Injection. Because of col­lapsed veins, it took near­ly an hour to com­plete the execution.[11]

9. December 13, 1988. Texas. Raymond Landry. Lethal Injection. Pronounced dead 40 min­utes after being strapped to the exe­cu­tion gur­ney and 24 min­utes after the drugs first start­ed flow­ing into his arms.[12] Two min­utes after the drugs were admin­is­tered, the syringe came out of Landry’s vein, spray­ing the dead­ly chem­i­cals across the room toward wit­ness­es. The cur­tain sep­a­rat­ing the wit­ness­es from the inmate was then pulled, and not reopened for four­teen min­utes while the exe­cu­tion team rein­sert­ed the catheter into the vein. Witnesses report­ed ​“at least one groan.” A spokesman for the Texas Department of Correction, Charles Brown (sic), said, ​“There was some­thing of a delay in the exe­cu­tion because of what offi­cials called a ​‘blowout.’ The syringe came out of the vein, and the war­den ordered the (exe­cu­tion) team to rein­sert the catheter into the vein.”[13]

10. May 24, 1989. Texas. Stephen McCoy. Lethal Injection. He had such a vio­lent phys­i­cal reac­tion to the drugs (heav­ing chest, gasp­ing, chok­ing, back arch­ing off the gur­ney, etc.) that one of the wit­ness­es (male) faint­ed, crash­ing into and knock­ing over anoth­er wit­ness. Houston attor­ney Karen Zellars, who rep­re­sent­ed McCoy and wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, thought the faint­ing would cat­alyze a chain reac­tion. The Texas Attorney General admit­ted the inmate ​“seemed to have had a some­what stronger reac­tion,” adding, ​“The drugs might have been admin­is­tered in a heav­ier dose or more rapidly.”[14]

11. July 14, 1989. Alabama. Horace Franklin Dunkins, Jr. Electrocution. It took two jolts of elec­tric­i­ty, nine min­utes apart, to com­plete the exe­cu­tion. After the first jolt failed to kill the pris­on­er (who was mild­ly retard­ed), the cap­tain of the prison guard opened the door to the wit­ness room and stat­ed ​“I believe we’ve got the jacks on wrong.”[15] Because the cables had been con­nect­ed improp­er­ly, it was impos­si­ble to dis­pense suf­fi­cient cur­rent to cause death. The cables were recon­nect­ed before a sec­ond jolt was admin­is­tered. Death was pro­nounced 19 min­utes after the first elec­tric charge. At a post-exe­cu­tion news con­fer­ence, Alabama Prison Commissioner Morris Thigpen said, ​“I regret very very much what hap­pened. [The cause] was human error.”[16]

12. May 4, 1990. Florida. Jesse Joseph Tafero. Electrocution. During the exe­cu­tion, six-inch flames erupt­ed from Tafero’s head, and three jolts of pow­er were required to stop his breath­ing. State offi­cials claimed that the botched exe­cu­tion was caused by ​“inad­ver­tent human error” — the inap­pro­pri­ate sub­sti­tu­tion of a syn­thet­ic sponge for a nat­ur­al sponge that had been used in pre­vi­ous executions.[17] They attempt­ed to sup­port this the­o­ry by stick­ing a part of a syn­thet­ic sponge into a ​“com­mon house­hold toast­er” and observ­ing that it smol­dered and caught fire.[18]

13. September 12, 1990. Illinois. Charles Walker. Lethal Injection. Because of equip­ment fail­ure and human error, Walker suf­fered excru­ci­at­ing pain dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. According to Gary Sutterfield, an engi­neer from the Missouri State Prison who was retained by the State of Illinois to assist with Walker’s exe­cu­tion, a kink in the plas­tic tub­ing going into Walker’s arm stopped the dead­ly chem­i­cals from reach­ing Walker. In addi­tion, the intra­venous nee­dle was insert­ed point­ing at Walker’s fin­gers instead of his heart, pro­long­ing the execution.[19]

14. October 17, 1990. Virginia. Wilbert Lee Evans. Electrocution. When Evans was hit with the first burst of elec­tric­i­ty, blood spewed from the right side of the mask on Evans’s face, drench­ing Evans’s shirt with blood and caus­ing a siz­zling sound as blood dripped from his lips. Evans con­tin­ued to moan before a sec­ond jolt of elec­tric­i­ty was applied. The autop­sy con­clud­ed that Evans suf­fered a bloody nose after the volt­age surge ele­vat­ed his high blood pressure.[20]

15. August 22, 1991. Virginia. Derick Lynn Peterson. Electrocution. After the first cycle of elec­tric­i­ty was applied, and again four min­utes lat­er, prison physi­cian David Barnes inspect­ed Peterson’s neck and checked him with a stetho­scope, announc­ing each time ​“He has not expired.” Seven and one-half min­utes after the first attempt to kill the inmate, a sec­ond cycle of elec­tric­i­ty was applied. Prison offi­cials lat­er announced that in the future they would rou­tine­ly admin­is­ter two cycles before check­ing for a heartbeat.[21]

16. January 24, 1992. Arkansas. Rickey Ray Rector. Lethal Injection. It took med­ical staff more than 50 min­utes to find a suit­able vein in Rector’s arm. Witnesses were kept behind a drawn cur­tain and not per­mit­ted to view this scene, but report­ed hear­ing Rector’s eight loud moans through­out the process. During the ordeal Rector (who suf­fered from seri­ous brain dam­age) helped the med­ical per­son­nel find a vein. The admin­is­tra­tor of State’s Department of Corrections med­ical pro­grams said (para­phrased by a news­pa­per reporter) ​“the moans did come as a team of two med­ical peo­ple that had grown to five worked on both sides of his body to find a vein.” The admin­is­tra­tor said ​“That may have con­tributed to his occa­sion­al out­bursts.” The dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing a suit­able vein was lat­er attrib­uted to Rector’s bulk and his reg­u­lar use of antipsy­chot­ic medication.[22]

17. April 6, 1992. Arizona. Donald Eugene Harding. Asphyxiation. Death was not pro­nounced until 10 1/​2 min­utes after the cyanide tablets were dropped.[23] During the exe­cu­tion, Harding thrashed and strug­gled vio­lent­ly against the restrain­ing straps. A tele­vi­sion jour­nal­ist who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, Cameron Harper, said that Harding’s spasms and jerks last­ed 6 min­utes and 37 sec­onds. ​“Obviously, this man was suf­fer­ing. This was a vio­lent death … an ugly event. We put ani­mals to death more humanely.”[24] Another wit­ness, news­pa­per reporter Carla McClain, said, ​“Harding’s death was extreme­ly vio­lent. He was in great pain. I heard him gasp and moan. I saw his body turn from red to purple.”[25] One reporter who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion suf­fered from insom­nia and assort­ed ill­ness­es for sev­er­al weeks; two oth­ers were ​“walk­ing veg­eta­bles” for sev­er­al days.[26]

18. March 10, 1992. Oklahoma. Robyn Lee Parks. Lethal Injection. Parks had a vio­lent reac­tion to the drugs used in the lethal injec­tion. Two min­utes after the drugs were dis­pensed, the mus­cles in his jaw, neck, and abdomen began to react spas­mod­i­cal­ly for approx­i­mate­ly 45 sec­onds. Parks con­tin­ued to gasp and vio­lent­ly gag until death came, some eleven min­utes after the drugs were first admin­is­tered. Tulsa World reporter Wayne Greene wrote that the exe­cu­tion looked ​“painful,” ​“scary and ugly.” ​“It was over­whelm­ing, stun­ning, dis­turb­ing — an intru­sion into a moment so per­son­al that reporters, taught for years that intru­sion is their busi­ness, had trou­ble look­ing each oth­er in the eyes after it was over.”[27]

19. April 23, 1992. Texas. Billy Wayne White. Lethal Injection. White was pro­nounced dead some 47 min­utes after being strapped to the exe­cu­tion gur­ney. The delay was caused by dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing a vein; White had a long his­to­ry of hero­in abuse. During the exe­cu­tion, White attempt­ed to assist the author­i­ties in find­ing a suit­able vein.[28]

20. May 7, 1992. Texas. Justin Lee May. Lethal Injection. May had an unusu­al­ly vio­lent reac­tion to the lethal drugs. According to one reporter who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, May ​“gasped, coughed and reared against his heavy leather restraints, cough­ing once again before his body froze.”[29] Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk wrote, ​“Compared to oth­er recent exe­cu­tions in Texas, May’s reac­tion to the drugs was more vio­lent. He went into a cough­ing spasm, groaned and gasped, lift­ed his head from the death cham­ber gur­ney and would have arched his back if he had not been belt­ed down. After he stopped breath­ing, his eyes and mouth remained open.”[30]

21. May 10, 1994. Illinois. John Wayne Gacy. Lethal Injection. After the exe­cu­tion began, the lethal chem­i­cals unex­pect­ed­ly solid­i­fied, clog­ging the IV tube that led into Gacy’s arm, and pro­hibit­ing any fur­ther pas­sage. Blinds cov­er­ing the win­dow through which wit­ness­es observed the exe­cu­tion were drawn, and the exe­cu­tion team replaced the clogged tube with a new one. Ten min­utes lat­er, the blinds were then reopened and the exe­cu­tion process resumed. It took 18 min­utes to complete.[31] Anesthesiologists blamed the prob­lem on the inex­pe­ri­ence of prison offi­cials who were con­duct­ing the exe­cu­tion, say­ing that prop­er pro­ce­dures taught in ​“IV 101” would have pre­vent­ed the error.[32]

22. May 3, 1995. Missouri. Emmitt Foster. Lethal Injection. Seven min­utes after the lethal chem­i­cals began to flow into Foster’s arm, the exe­cu­tion was halt­ed when the chem­i­cals stopped cir­cu­lat­ing. With Foster gasp­ing and con­vuls­ing, the blinds were drawn so the wit­ness­es could not view the scene. Death was pro­nounced thir­ty min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began, and three min­utes lat­er the blinds were reopened so the wit­ness­es could view the corpse.[33] According to William ​“Mal” Gum, the Washington County Coroner who pro­nounced death, the prob­lem was caused by the tight­ness of the leather straps that bound Foster to the exe­cu­tion gur­ney; it was so tight that the flow of chem­i­cals into the veins was restrict­ed. Foster did not die until sev­er­al min­utes after a prison work­er final­ly loos­ened the straps. The coro­ner entered the death cham­ber twen­ty min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began, diag­nosed the prob­lem, and told the offi­cials to loosen the strap so the exe­cu­tion could proceed.[34] In an edi­to­r­i­al, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the exe­cu­tion ​“a par­tic­u­lar­ly sor­did chap­ter in Missouri’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment experience.”[35]

23. January 23, 1996. Virginia. Richard Townes, Jr. Lethal Injection. This exe­cu­tion was delayed for 22 min­utes while med­ical per­son­nel strug­gled to find a vein large enough for the nee­dle. After unsuc­cess­ful attempts to insert the nee­dle through the arms, the nee­dle was final­ly insert­ed through the top of Mr. Townes’s right foot.[36]

24. July 18, 1996. Indiana. Tommie J. Smith. Lethal Injection. Because of unusu­al­ly small veins, it took one hour and nine min­utes for Smith to be pro­nounced dead after the exe­cu­tion team began stick­ing nee­dles into his body. For six­teen min­utes, the exe­cu­tion team failed to find ade­quate veins, and then a physi­cian was called.[37] Smith was giv­en a local anes­thet­ic and the physi­cian twice attempt­ed to insert the tube in Smith’s neck. When that failed, an angio-catheter was insert­ed in Smith’s foot. Only then were wit­ness­es per­mit­ted to view the process. The lethal drugs were final­ly inject­ed into Smith 49 min­utes after the first attempts, and it took anoth­er 20 min­utes before death was pronounced.[38]

25. March 25, 1997. Florida. Pedro Medina. Electrocution. A crown of foot-high flames shot from the head­piece dur­ing the exe­cu­tion, fill­ing the exe­cu­tion cham­ber with a stench of thick smoke and gag­ging the two dozen offi­cial wit­ness­es. An offi­cial then threw a switch to man­u­al­ly cut off the pow­er and pre­ma­ture­ly end the two-minute cycle of 2,000 volts. Medina’s chest con­tin­ued to heave until the flames stopped and death came.[39] After the exe­cu­tion, prison offi­cials blamed the fire on a cor­rod­ed cop­per screen in the head­piece of the elec­tric chair, but two experts hired by the gov­er­nor lat­er con­clud­ed that the fire was caused by the improp­er appli­ca­tion of a sponge (designed to con­duct elec­tric­i­ty) to Medina’s head.

26. May 8, 1997. Oklahoma. Scott Dawn Carpenter. Lethal Injection. Carpenter was pro­nounced dead some 11 min­utes after the lethal injec­tion was admin­is­tered. As the drugs took effect, Carpenter began to gasp and shake. ​“This was fol­lowed by a gut­tur­al sound, mul­ti­ple spasms and gasp­ing for air” until his body stopped mov­ing, three min­utes later.[40]

27. June 13, 1997. South Carolina. Michael Eugene Elkins. Lethal Injection. Because Elkins’s body had become swollen from liv­er and spleen prob­lems, it took near­ly an hour to find a suit­able vein for the inser­tion of the catheter. Elkins tried to assist the exe­cu­tion­ers, ask­ing ​“Should I lean my head down a lit­tle bit?” as they probed for a vein. After numer­ous fail­ures, a usable vein was final­ly found in Elkins’s neck.[41]

28. April 23, 1998. Texas. Joseph Cannon. Lethal Injection. It took two attempts to com­plete the exe­cu­tion. After mak­ing his final state­ment, the exe­cu­tion process began. A vein in Cannon’s arm col­lapsed and the nee­dle popped out. Seeing this, Cannon lay back, closed his eyes, and exclaimed to the wit­ness­es, ​“It’s come undone.” Officials then pulled a cur­tain to block the view of the wit­ness­es, reopen­ing it fif­teen min­utes lat­er when a weep­ing Cannon made a sec­ond final state­ment and the exe­cu­tion process resumed.[42]

29. August 26, 1998. Texas. Genaro Ruiz Camacho. Lethal Injection. The exe­cu­tion was delayed approx­i­mate­ly two hours due, in part, to prob­lems find­ing suit­able veins in Camacho’s arms.[43]

30. October 5, 1998. Nevada. Roderick Abeyta. Lethal Injection. It took 25 min­utes for the exe­cu­tion team to find a vein suit­able for the lethal injection.[44]

31. July 8, 1999. Florida. Allen Lee Davis. Electrocution. ​“Before he was pro­nounced dead … the blood from his mouth had poured onto the col­lar of his white shirt, and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a din­ner plate, even ooz­ing through the buck­le holes on the leather chest strap hold­ing him to the chair.”[45] His exe­cu­tion was the first in Florida’s new elec­tric chair, built espe­cial­ly so it could accom­mo­date a man Davis’s size (approx­i­mate­ly 350 pounds). Later, when anoth­er Florida death row inmate chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the elec­tric chair, Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw com­ment­ed that ​“the col­or pho­tos of Davis depict a man who — for all appear­ances — was bru­tal­ly tor­tured to death by the cit­i­zens of Florida.”[46] Justice Shaw also described the botched exe­cu­tions of Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina (q.v.), call­ing the three exe­cu­tions ​“bar­bar­ic spec­ta­cles” and ​“acts more befit­ting a vio­lent mur­der­er than a civ­i­lized state.”[47] Justice Shaw includ­ed pic­tures of Davis’s dead body in his opinion.[48] The exe­cu­tion was wit­nessed by a Florida State Senator, Ginny Brown-Waite, who at first was ​“shocked” to see the blood, until she real­ized that the blood was form­ing the shape of a cross and that it was a mes­sage from God say­ing he sup­port­ed the execution.[49] (See Photos tak­en after exe­cu­tion — graphic images).

32. May 3, 2000. Arkansas. Christina Marie Riggs. Lethal Injection. Riggs dropped her appeals and asked to be exe­cut­ed. However, the exe­cu­tion was delayed for 18 min­utes when prison staff could­n’t find a suit­able vein in her elbows. Finally, Riggs agreed to the exe­cu­tion­ers’ requests to have the nee­dles in her wrists.[50]

33. June 8, 2000. Florida. Bennie Demps. Lethal Injection. It took exe­cu­tion tech­ni­cians 33 min­utes to find suit­able veins for the exe­cu­tion. ​“They butchered me back there,” said Demps in his final state­ment. ​“I was in a lot of pain. They cut me in the groin; they cut me in the leg. I was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly. This is not an exe­cu­tion, it is mur­der.” The exe­cu­tion­ers had no unusu­al prob­lems find­ing one vein, but because Florida pro­to­col requires a sec­ond alter­nate intra­venous drip, they con­tin­ued to work to insert anoth­er nee­dle, final­ly aban­don­ing the effort after their pro­longed failures.[51]

34. December 7, 2000. Texas. Claude Jones. Lethal Injection. Jones was a for­mer intra­venous drug abuser. His exe­cu­tion was delayed 30 min­utes while the exe­cu­tion team strug­gled to insert an IV into a vein. One mem­ber of the exe­cu­tion team com­ment­ed, ​“They had to stick him about five times. They final­ly put it in his leg.” Jim Willett, the war­den of the Walls Unit and the man respon­si­ble for con­duct­ing the exe­cu­tion, wrote: ​“The med­ical team could not find a vein. Now I was real­ly begin­ning to wor­ry. If you can’t stick a vein then a cut-down has to be per­formed. I have nev­er seen one and would just as soon go through the rest of my career the same way. Just when I was real­ly get­ting wor­ried, one of the med­ical peo­ple hit a vein in the left leg. Inside calf to be exact. The exe­cu­tion­er had warned me not to pan­ic as it was going to take a while to get the flu­ids in the body of the inmate tonight because he was going to push the drugs through very slow­ly. Finally, the drug took effect and Jones took his last breath.”[52]

35. June 28, 2000. Missouri. Bert Leroy Hunter. Lethal Injection. Hunter had an unusu­al reac­tion to the lethal drugs, repeat­ed­ly cough­ing and gasp­ing for air before he lapsed into unconsciousness.[53] An attor­ney who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion report­ed that Hunter had ​“vio­lent con­vul­sions. His head and chest jerked rapid­ly upward as far as the gur­ney restraints would allow, and then he fell quick­ly down upon the gur­ney. His body con­vulsed back and forth like this repeat­ed­ly. … He suf­fered a vio­lent and ago­niz­ing death.”[54] However, three reporters who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion did not sub­stan­ti­ate these obser­va­tions, with two report­ing that Hunter sim­ply coughed sev­er­al times and the third stat­ing that he saw no vio­lent reac­tion to the drugs. [55]

36. November 7, 2001. Georgia. Jose High. Lethal Injection. High was pro­nounced dead some one hour and nine min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began. After attempt­ing to find a use­able vein for ​“15 to 20 min­utes,” the emer­gency med­ical tech­ni­cians under con­tract to do the exe­cu­tion aban­doned their efforts. Eventually, one nee­dle was stuck in High’s hand, and a physi­cian was called in to insert a sec­ond nee­dle between his shoul­der and neck.[56]

37. May 2, 2006. Ohio. Joseph L. Clark. Lethal Injection. It took 22 min­utes for the exe­cu­tion tech­ni­cians to find a vein suit­able for inser­tion of the catheter. But three or four min­utes there­after, as the vein col­lapsed and Clark’s arm began to swell, he raised his head off the gur­ney and said five times, ​“It don’t work. It don’t work.” The cur­tains sur­round­ing the gur­ney were then closed while the tech­ni­cians worked for 30 min­utes to find anoth­er vein. Media wit­ness­es lat­er report­ed that they heard ​“moan­ing, cry­ing out and gut­tur­al noises.”[57] Finally, death was pro­nounced almost 90 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began. A spokes­woman for the Ohio Department of Corrections told reporters that the exe­cu­tion team includ­ed para­medics, but not a physi­cian or a nurse.[58]

38. December 13, 2006. Florida. Angel Diaz. Lethal Injection. After the first injec­tion was admin­is­tered, Mr. Diaz con­tin­ued to move, and was squint­ing and gri­mac­ing as he tried to mouth words. A sec­ond dose was then admin­is­tered, and 34 min­utes passed before Mr. Diaz was declared dead. At first a spokesper­son for the Florida Department of Corrections claimed that this was because Mr. Diaz had some sort of liv­er disease.[59] After per­form­ing an autop­sy, the Medical Examiner, Dr. William Hamilton, stat­ed that Mr. Diaz’s liv­er was undam­aged, but that the IV catheters (which had been insert­ed in both arms) had gone through Mr. Diaz’s veins and out the oth­er side, so the dead­ly chem­i­cals were inject­ed into soft tis­sue, rather than the vein. Two days after the exe­cu­tion, Governor Jeb Bush tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed all exe­cu­tions in the state and appoint­ed a com­mis­sion ​“to con­sid­er the human­i­ty and con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of lethal injections.”[60] In 2014, pic­tures from the autop­sy of Mr. Diaz’s body, along with a long arti­cle describ­ing his painful death, were pub­lished in The New Republic.[61]

39. May 24, 2007. Ohio. Christopher Newton. Lethal Injection. According to the Associated Press, ​“prison med­ical staff” at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility strug­gled to find veins on each of Newton’s arms dur­ing the exe­cu­tion. Newton, who weight­ed 265 pounds, was declared dead almost two hours after the exe­cu­tion process began. The exe­cu­tion ​“team” stuck Newton at least ten times with nee­dles before get­ting the shunts in place were the nee­dles are injected.[62]

40. June 26, 2007. Georgia. John Hightower. Lethal Injection. It took approx­i­mate­ly 40 min­utes for the nurs­es to find a suit­able vein to admin­is­ter the lethal chem­i­cals, and death was not pro­nounced until 7:59, 59 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion process began.[63]

41. June 4, 2008. Georgia. Curtis Osborne. Lethal Injection. After a 55-minute delay while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed his final appeal, prison med­ical staff began the exe­cu­tion by try­ing to find suit­able veins in which to insert the IV. The exe­cu­tion­ers strug­gled for 35 min­utes to find a vein, and it took 14 min­utes after the fatal drugs were admin­is­tered before death was pro­nounced by two physi­cians who were inside the death chamber.[64]

42. September 15, 2009. Ohio. Romell Broom (pic­tured, after exe­cu­tion attempt). Lethal Injection (failed). Efforts to find a suit­able vein and to exe­cute Mr. Broom were ter­mi­nat­ed after more than two hours when the exe­cu­tion­ers were unable to find a use­able vein in Mr. Broom’s arms or legs. During the failed efforts, Mr. Broom winced and gri­maced with pain. After the first hour’s lack of suc­cess, on sev­er­al occa­sions Broom tried to help the exe­cu­tion­ers find a good vein. ​“At one point, he cov­ered his face with both hands and appeared to be sob­bing, his stom­ach heaving.[65] Finally, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland ordered the exe­cu­tion to stop, and announced plans to attempt the exe­cu­tion anew after a one-week delay so that physi­cians could be con­sult­ed for advice on how the man could be killed more efficiently.[66] The exe­cu­tion­ers blamed the prob­lems on Mr. Broom’s his­to­ry of intra­venous drug use. Mr. Broom died in December 2020 of COVID-19 con­tract­ed on Ohio’s death row.

43. September 27, 2010. Georgia. Brandon Joseph Rhode. Lethal Injection. After the Supreme Court reject­ed his appeals, ​“Medics then tried for about 30 min­utes to find a vein to inject the three-drug con­coc­tion.” It then took 14 min­utes for the lethal drugs to kill him. The exe­cu­tion had been delayed six days because a prison guard had giv­en Rhode a razor blade, which Rhode used to attempt suicide.[67]

44. January 16, 2014. Ohio. Dennis McGuire. Lethal Injection. McGuire gasped for air for some 25 min­utes while the drugs used in the exe­cu­tion, hydro­mor­phone and mida­zo­lam, slow­ly took effect. Witnesses report­ed that after the drugs were inject­ed, McGuire was strug­gling, with his stom­ach heav­ing and fist clenched, mak­ing ​“hor­ri­ble” snort­ing and chok­ing sounds.[68] In a law­suit filed after the exe­cu­tion, Mr. McGuire’s fam­i­ly alleged that the inmate expe­ri­enced ​“repeat­ed cycles of snort­ing, gur­gling and arch­ing his back, appear­ing to writhe in pain,” the law­suit said. ​“It looked and sound­ed as though he was suffocating.”[69]

45. April 29, 2014. Oklahoma. Clayton D. Lockett. Lethal Injection. Despite pro­longed lit­i­ga­tion and numer­ous warn­ings from defense attor­neys about the dan­gers of using an exper­i­men­tal drug pro­to­col with the drug mida­zo­lam, Oklahoma went ahead and sched­uled the exe­cu­tions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner. Plans for the exe­cu­tion and the drugs used were cloaked in secre­cy, with the state refus­ing to release infor­ma­tion about the source and effi­ca­cy of the lethal drugs, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to accu­rate­ly pre­dict the effects of the com­bi­na­tion of drugs. Nonetheless, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallon pres­sured the Courts to allow the exe­cu­tion, a bill was intro­duced in the Oklahoma House of Representatives to impeach the Justices who had vot­ed to stay the exe­cu­tion, and the state Supreme Court allowed the exe­cu­tions to go forward.

Mr. Lockett was the first who was sched­uled to die. An hour before the exe­cu­tion began, the gov­er­nor was noti­fied that the exe­cu­tion­er (a ​“phle­botomist”) was hav­ing prob­lems find­ing a usable vein, but she did not inter­vene. After an hour, a vein was final­ly found in Mr. Lockett’s ​“groin area,” and the exe­cu­tion went for­ward. Ten min­utes after the admin­is­tra­tion of the first drug, a seda­tive, the physi­cian super­vis­ing the process (whose very pres­ence vio­lat­ed eth­i­cal stan­dards of sev­er­al med­ical orga­ni­za­tions) announced that the inmate was uncon­scious, and there­fore ready to receive the oth­er two drugs that would actu­al­ly kill him. Those two drugs were known to cause excru­ci­at­ing pain if the recip­i­ent was con­scious. However, Mr. Lockett was not uncon­scious. Three min­utes after the lat­ter two drugs were inject­ed, ​“he began breath­ing heav­i­ly, writhing on the gur­ney, clench­ing his teeth and strain­ing to lift his head off the pillow.”[70] Officials then low­ered the blinds to pro­hib­it wit­ness­es from see­ing what was going on, and 15 min­utes lat­er the wit­ness­es were ordered to leave the room.

Twenty min­utes after the first drugs were admin­is­tered, the Director the Oklahoma Department of Corrections halt­ed the exe­cu­tion and issued a two-week stay (lat­er extend­ed by exten­sive lit­i­ga­tion) for the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Warner. Mr. Lockett died 43 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began, of a heart attack, while still in the exe­cu­tion chamber.[71]

46. July 23, 2014. Arizona. Joseph R. Wood. Lethal Injection. After the chem­i­cals (mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone) were inject­ed, Mr. Wood repeat­ed­ly gasped for one hour and 40 min­utes before death was pro­nounced. During the ordeal, Mr. Wood’s attor­neys filed an emer­gency appeal to a Federal District Court and placed a phone call to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in a failed effort to halt the botched exe­cu­tion. Meanwhile, a spokesper­son for the Arizona Attorney General’s office claimed that Mr. Wood was asleep and was sim­ply snor­ing. In the days before the exe­cu­tion, defense attor­neys won a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on their motion to com­pel the state to reveal the source of the drugs and the train­ing of the exe­cu­tion­ers. However, this stay was lat­er over­turned by the Supreme Court.[72] A reporter for the Arizona Republic who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, Michael Kiefer, said that he count­ed 640 gasps from Wood before he final­ly died.[73]

47. December 9, 2015. Georgia. Brian Keith Terrell. Lethal Injection. “[I]t took an hour for the nurse assigned to the exe­cu­tion to get IVs insert­ed into both of the con­demned man’s arms. She even­tu­al­ly had to put one into Terrell’s right hand. Terrell winced sev­er­al times, appar­ent­ly in pain.”[74]

48. February 3, 2016. Georgia. Brandon Jones. Lethal Injection. After spend­ing 24 min­utes unsuc­cess­ful­ly try­ing to insert an IV into Jones’ left arm, the exe­cu­tion­ers spent 8 min­utes try­ing to insert it in his right arm and, when that failed, they again attempt­ed to insert it in his left arm. They then asked a physi­cian to vio­late sev­er­al codes of med­ical ethics for assis­tance, and he or she spent 13 min­utes insert­ing and stitch­ing the IV near Jones’ groin. Six min­utes lat­er, Jones’ eyes popped open. He was 72 years old at the time of his execution.[75]

49. December 8, 2016. Alabama. Ronald Bert Smith, Jr. Lethal Injection. Smith (a for­mer Eagle Scout and Army reservist) was con­vict­ed of a 1994 mur­der of a con­ve­nience store clerk, and his jury at tri­al (after anti-death penal­ty cit­i­zens were removed) vot­ed 7 – 5 to rec­om­mend a pun­ish­ment of life impris­on­ment with­out parole. Alabama, how­ev­er, requires nei­ther una­nim­i­ty nor a major­i­ty jury vote before the tri­al judge can sen­tence a defen­dant to death. Smith heaved, gasped and coughed while strug­gling for breath for 13 min­utes after the lethal drugs were admin­is­tered, and death was pro­nounced 34 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion began. He also ​“clenched his fists and raised his head dur­ing the ear­ly part of the pro­ce­dure.” Alabama used the con­tro­ver­sial seda­tive mida­zo­lam (a ​“val­i­um-like drug”) in the execution.[76]

50. October 19, 2017. Alabama. Torrey McNabb. Lethal Injection. It took 35 min­utes for the lethal injec­tion (mida­zo­lam) to end Mr. McNabb’s life.[77] ​”McNabb’s attor­ney said Friday that his move­ments dur­ing the mid­dle of the exe­cu­tion, that includ­ed mov­ing his arm and rolling his head back and forth after a con­scious­ness check, showed prob­lems with the seda­tive used by the state. … McNabb’s fam­i­ly mem­bers and attor­neys who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion expressed con­cerns to each oth­er that he was still con­scious dur­ing the lethal injec­tion. ​“He’s going to wake up,” one of his relatives whispered.”

51. November 15, 2017. Ohio. Alva Campbell. Lethal Injection (failed). ​“The exe­cu­tion team first worked on both of Alva Campbell’s arms for about 30 min­utes Wednesday while he was on a gur­ney in the state’s death cham­ber and then tried to find a vein in his right leg below the knee. … About 80 min­utes after the exe­cu­tion was sched­uled to begin, the 69-year-old Campbell shook hands with two guards after it appeared the inser­tion was suc­cess­ful. About two min­utes lat­er, media wit­ness­es were told to leave with­out being told what was hap­pen­ing. … Gary Mohr, head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, … [then] called off the exe­cu­tion after talk­ing with the med­ical team [say­ing] ​‘It was my deci­sion that it was not like­ly that we’re going to access veins.’ … Prison offi­cials brought Campbell into the death cham­ber in a wheel­chair and pro­vid­ed him a wedge pil­low on the gur­ney, which was meant to help him breathe. Campbell has suf­fered from breath­ing prob­lems relat­ed to a long­time smok­ing habit. His attor­neys said he has required a walk­er, relied on a colosto­my bag and need­ed breath­ing treat­ments four times a day.” [78] Less than four months lat­er, on March 3, 2018, Campbell died on death row of his ter­mi­nal medical conditions.

52. February 22, 2018. Alabama. Doyle Lee Hamm. Lethal Injection (failed). Despite sev­er­al warn­ings from defense coun­sel that it would be impos­si­ble to find a vein in which to insert the catheter (Hamm suf­fered from advanced lym­phat­ic can­cer and car­ci­no­ma), the State went for­ward with the exe­cu­tion. For 2.5 hours, the exe­cu­tion­ers tried to find a vein, leav­ing Hamm with a ten-twelve punc­ture marks, includ­ing six in his groin and oth­ers that punc­tured his blad­der and pen­e­trat­ed his femoral artery. Finally, approach­ing a mid­night dead­line that pro­hib­it­ed fur­ther attempts, the exe­cu­tion was called off. Alabama Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn lat­er told reporters, ​“I wouldn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly char­ac­ter­ize what we had tonight as a problem.”[79] [NOTE: On March 5, 2018, attor­neys for Doyle Hamm sub­mit­ted a pre­lim­i­nary report from an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist who eval­u­at­ed Hamm on February 25. WARNING: Report con­tains graph­ic images and descrip­tions.] On November 28, 2021, Mr. Hamm, still in prison, died from his lym­phoma and cra­nial cancer.[80]

53. October 28, 2021. Oklahoma. John Marion Grant. Lethal Injection. After the first drug was admin­is­tered (mida­zo­lam), Mr. Grant con­vulsed and vom­it­ed for sev­er­al min­utes, lead­ing mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team to wipe the vom­it from his face and neck. Associated Press media wit­ness Sean Murphy said that ​“Grant’s body shook and jerked near­ly two dozen times before vom­it spurt­ed from his mouth and spilled down his neck.”[81] In addi­tion, the autop­sy report (on file with DPIC) found pul­monary ede­ma and intra­mus­cu­lar hem­or­rhag­ing of the tongue (p. 2). Prior to the exe­cu­tion, Mr. Grant’s legal team (along with attor­neys for some two-dozen oth­er Oklahoma death row inmates) had argued that the state’s three-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col would cause unnec­es­sary and excru­ci­at­ing pain. Said Robert Dunham, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Death Penalty Information Center, ​“Oklahoma knew full well that this was well with­in the realm of pos­si­ble out­comes in a mida­zo­lam exe­cu­tion. It didn’t care … and the Supreme Court appar­ent­ly didn’t either.”[82]

54. May 11, 2022. Arizona. Clarence Dixon. Lethal Injection. ​“Troy Hayden, a media wit­ness from Fox News, said the exe­cu­tion team had trou­ble get­ting IVs into Dixon, who gri­maced and appeared to be in pain while this was hap­pen­ing. … Hayden said exe­cu­tion team mem­bers took 25 min­utes to insert IVs into Dixon’s body, even­tu­al­ly resort­ing to mak­ing an inci­sion and insert­ing an IV into Dixon’s groin. Dixon was gri­mac­ing and appeared to be in pain while the exe­cu­tion team attempt­ed to insert the IVs.”[83]

55. June 8, 2022. Arizona. Frank Atwood. Lethal Injection. Mr. Atwood had to assist his exe­cu­tions in find­ing a suit­able vein for his exe­cu­tion. Arizona Republic reporter Jimmy Jenkins, who wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion, called it ​“sur­re­al.” ​“I have wit­nessed life. And I have wit­nessed death. But noth­ing could have pre­pared me for the sur­re­al spec­ta­cle I wit­nessed dur­ing the exe­cu­tion of Frank Atwood.” Atwood, age 65, had a degen­er­a­tive spinal con­di­tion and had to be wheeled to the gur­ney in a wheel­chair. ““After a few min­utes and what appeared to be sev­er­al attempts [to insert the nee­dle], the exe­cu­tion team insert­ed an IV and catheter into Atwood‘s left arm. … The exe­cu­tion team tried and failed to get the IV into his right arm sev­er­al times.” Atwood then sug­gest­ed to the exe­cu­tion­ers that they try to insert the nee­dle in his hand. That did the job. The total exe­cu­tion took approx­i­mate­ly 30 minutes.[84]

56. July 28, 2022. Alabama. Joe Nathan James, Jr. Lethal Injection. Rejecting pleas from the two daugh­ters and the broth­er of the homi­cide vic­tim, Faith Hall, Governor Kay Ivey ordered the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed. The exe­cu­tion was sched­uled for 6:00 p.m. Central time, but for rea­sons that the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) failed to direct­ly address, the exe­cu­tion was delayed for three hours. Prison offi­cials assert­ed that the delay was a result of attempt­ing to com­ply with the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col with­out ini­ti­at­ing a cut-down pro­ce­dure and that ​“noth­ing out of the ordi­nary” had occurred dur­ing the delay. A pri­vate autop­sy lat­er demon­strat­ed that ADOC’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion was false.

The autop­sy find­ings, described by reporter Elizabeth Bruenig in an August 15, 2022 exposé in The Atlantic, doc­u­ment­ed mul­ti­ple failed attempts by the ADOC exe­cu­tion team to set an intra­venous exe­cu­tion line, punc­ture wounds in Mr. James arm mus­cles that appeared to be unre­lat­ed to efforts to insert the IV, mul­ti­ple unex­plained inci­sions, and bleed­ing and bruis­ing around Mr. James’ wrists where he was strapped to the gur­ney. Bruenig called the exe­cu­tion ​“lengthy and painful,” and a doc­tor who attend­ed the autop­sy said the exe­cu­tion team that car­ried it out ​“was unqual­i­fied for the task in a most dra­mat­ic way.”[85]

The esti­mat­ed 3 to 3½ hours between the ini­ti­a­tion of efforts to set the exe­cu­tion IV to the time of James’ death was the longest botched lethal-injec­tion exe­cu­tion since the method came into use in the U.S. in 1982. The human rights group Reprieve, which fund­ed the pri­vate autop­sy, said it had reviewed infor­ma­tion on 275 botched U.S. exe­cu­tions since 1890 and found that the inter­val between the start of James’ exe­cu­tion and his death was the longest on record involv­ing any method of execution.[86] 

While the unex­plained delay was tak­ing place, prison offi­cials sub­ject­ed two female reporters to cloth­ing exam­i­na­tions, deem­ing the skirt one wit­ness had worn when cov­er­ing pri­or exe­cu­tions ​“too short” to gain admis­sion to the prison. After the reporter found oth­er cloth­ing to wear, prison offi­cials fur­ther delayed media entry into the facil­i­ty by then telling her that she could not wear open-toed shoes. The same prison offi­cials sub­ject­ed a sec­ond vet­er­an female reporter to a clothing inspection.

Reporters were sub­se­quent­ly left in the prison trans­port van for near­ly 2½ hours, with­out any expla­na­tion for this addi­tion­al delay. The media wit­ness­es were ulti­mate­ly seat­ed in the exe­cu­tion view­ing room at 8:57 p.m. and the cur­tain to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber was raised at 9:02 p.m. Multiple reporters not­ed that James’ eyes were closed and he lay motion­less on the gur­ney. He was non-respon­sive when an exe­cu­tion team mem­ber read him his death war­rant at 9:03 and asked him if he had any final words. At 9:04 offi­cials began admin­is­ter­ing the exe­cu­tion drugs through an IV that was already in place in James’ left arm when the cur­tain was raised. Reporters indi­cat­ed that ​“James blinked and his eyes flut­tered briefly” after the drugs were inject­ed. He was pro­nounced dead at 9:27 p.m.

The next day, ADOC’s pub­lic infor­ma­tion offi­cer, Kelly Betts, indi­cat­ed via email that the delay had result­ed from dif­fi­cul­ties in estab­lish­ing the exe­cu­tion IV line. Prison author­i­ties pro­vid­ed no expla­na­tion for James’ non-respon­sive­ness. On the night of the exe­cu­tion, Commission Hamm specif­i­cal­ly denied that the exe­cu­tion team had sedat­ed James, a rep­re­sen­ta­tion Betts repeat­ed to the media the next day. Asked if James had been ful­ly con­scious when the exe­cu­tion cur­tain opened, Betts stat­ed, ​“I can­not con­firm that.”[87]

The pri­vate autop­sy found punc­ture wounds and bruis­ing around James’ knuck­les and wrists, which doc­tors said sug­gest­ed that exe­cu­tion team mem­bers had tried and failed to insert IV lines in those loca­tions. The autop­sy also doc­u­ment­ed punc­ture wounds in James’ mus­cu­la­ture that, Emory University anes­the­si­ol­o­gist Joel Zivot said, were ​“not in the anatom­i­cal vicin­i­ty of a known vein.”

“It is pos­si­ble that this just rep­re­sents gross incom­pe­tence, or some, or one, or more of these punc­tures were actu­al­ly intra­mus­cu­lar injec­tions,” Zivot explained. ​“An intra­mus­cu­lar injec­tion in this set­ting would only be used to deliv­er a sedat­ing med­ica­tion,” Zivot said.

On the inside of James’s left arm, the autop­sy exam­in­ers found a jagged inci­sion, which Zivot con­clud­ed was like­ly from a ​“cut­down” — a deep cut in the skin made to expose a vein. ​“I can’t tell if local anes­thet­ic was first infused into the skin, as slic­ing deep into the skin with a sharp sur­gi­cal blade in an awake per­son with­out local anes­the­sia would be extreme­ly painful,” Zivot explained.

“In a med­ical set­ting, ultra­sound has vir­tu­al­ly elim­i­nat­ed the need for a cut­down,” Zivot said, ​“and the fact that a cut­down was uti­lized here is fur­ther evi­dence that the IV team was unqual­i­fied for the task in a most dra­mat­ic way.”[88]

57. September 22, 2022. Alabama. Alan Eugene Miller. Lethal Injection (failed). Mr. Miller alleged that he had des­ig­nat­ed nitro­gen hypox­ia, which Alabama had autho­rized in 2018 as an alter­na­tive to lethal injec­tion, as the method of his exe­cu­tion but that Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) per­son­nel had lost his des­ig­na­tion form. During his chal­lenge to the state’s deci­sion to use lethal injec­tion, state pros­e­cu­tors sug­gest­ed that ADOC could exe­cute him by lethal gas. But when the fed­er­al dis­trict court gave them a firm dead­line to declare if they were ready to pro­ceed by nitro­gen hypox­ia, ADOC indi­cat­ed that it could not do so. On September 19, 2022, the dis­trict court issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion enjoin­ing Alabama from exe­cut­ing Miller ​“by any method oth­er than nitro­gen hypox­ia.” On the after­noon his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, a divid­ed pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied the state’s motion to set aside the injunc­tion. At about 9:15 p.m. Central time, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5 – 4 rul­ing that vacat­ed the injunc­tion, leav­ing Alabama approx­i­mate­ly 2½ hours to car­ry out the exe­cu­tion before the war­rant expired.[89]

The exe­cu­tion then began, but after fail­ing to prop­er­ly insert the catheter for at least 90 min­utes (while punc­tur­ing Mr. Miller with a nee­dle approx­i­mate­ly 18 times), ADOC Commissioner John Hamm ordered the exe­cu­tion­ers to stop. Thereafter, Mr. Miller asked the fed­er­al courts to pro­hib­it Alabama from try­ing again to put him to death.[90] On November 28, 2022, the State agreed that it would no longer attempt to exe­cute Mr. Miller by lethal injec­tion and that any future attempt to put him to death would be by means of nitro­gen hypoxia.[91]

58. November 16, 2022. Stephen Barbee. Texas. Lethal Injection. Mr. Barbee’s dis­abled arms were unable to be straight­ened out so the nee­dle with the dead­ly drugs could be prop­er­ly insert­ed. Earlier Mr. Barbee’s attor­ney had filed motions to stop the exe­cu­tion because these prob­lems were fore­see­able. His death was final­ly pro­nounced approx­i­mate­ly 90 min­utes after he was strapped in the gurney.[92]

59. November 16, 2022. Arizona. Murray Hooper. Lethal Injection. ​“For the third time since resum­ing the death penal­ty this year, the Arizona Department of Corrections strug­gled to insert the intra­venous nee­dles that deliv­er lethal drugs dur­ing an exe­cu­tion. … Witnesses … report­ed see­ing exe­cu­tion team mem­bers attempt and fail to insert IVs into both of Hooper’s arms before final­ly resort­ing to insert­ing a catheter into Hooper’s femoral vein near his groin.” [93]

60. November 17, 2022. Kenneth Eugene Smith. Alabama. Lethal Injection (failed). The exe­cu­tion began just after 10:00 pm, but was called off at 11:21 when prison offi­cials deter­mined that they did not have enough time to set a sec­ond IV line before the death war­rant expired at mid­night. Mr. Smith’s attor­neys report­ed that he had been strapped to the gur­ney at 8:00 and was not removed until four hours lat­er. They claimed that after two hours, ​“an IV team entered the exe­cu­tion cham­ber and began repeat­ed­ly jab­bing Mr. Smith’s arms and hands with nee­dles, well past the point at which the exe­cu­tion­ers should have known that it was not rea­son­ably pos­si­ble to access a vein.”[94] The Alabama Prisons Commissioner said ​“the peo­ple attempt­ing to car­ry out the exe­cu­tion had tried to insert a line into ​‘sev­er­al loca­tions’ with­out suc­cess.” Earlier on the day of the exe­cu­tion, an appeals court halt­ed so his attor­neys could argue that Alabama’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures could lead Mr. Smith to suf­fer an ille­gal­ly ​“cru­el” death. Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Court (with three dis­sent­ing votes) over­turned that deci­sion and ordered the exe­cu­tion to go for­ward. At tri­al, Mr. Smith’s jury vot­ed 11 – 1 in favor of a life sen­tence rather than the death penal­ty, but the tri­al judge reject­ed this rec­om­men­da­tion and instead imposed a death sentence.[95]

Five days after the botched (attempt­ed) exe­cu­tion, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey halt­ed all exe­cu­tions in the state and ordered a ​“top-to-bot­tom review” of the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, although the inves­ti­ga­tion appears to be far from an objec­tive review con­duct­ed by neu­tral par­ties. Said the gov­er­nor, ​“I don’t buy for a sec­ond the nar­ra­tive being pushed by activists that these issues are the fault of the folks at Corrections or any­one in law enforce­ment, for that mat­ter. I believe that legal tac­tics and crim­i­nals hijack­ing the sys­tem are at play here.”[96]

61. February 28, 2024. Thomas Creech. Idaho. Lethal Injection (failed). The exe­cu­tion team tried and failed eight times to insert a func­tion­al IV, try­ing to insert the catheter in his ​“arms, legs, hands and feet.” After 58 min­utes of fail­ures, the war­den final­ly halt­ed the exe­cu­tion and Creech was returned to his cell. Said attor­neys from the Idaho Federal Defender Services, ​“This is what hap­pens when unknown indi­vid­u­als with unknown train­ing are assigned to car­ry out an execution.”[97]