Posted on 05/13/2022 1:16:14 AM PDT by Morgana
Executioners in Arizona needed 25 minutes to get an IV into a death row inmate to administer a legal injection in what one expert says is the sign of an 'unqualified executioner'.
Clarence Dixon, 66, was put to death on Wednesday at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin.
He was the first inmate to be executed in the state since 2014. It appeared to follow the state's execution protocol. After the drug was injected, Dixon's mouth stayed open and his body did not move. He was declared dead about 10 minutes later.
But death penalty experts on Thursday said the estimated 25 minutes it took medical staff to insert an IV into Dixon's body was too long.
The workers first tried, and failed to insert an IV into his left arm before they were able to connect it in his right one. They then opted to make an incision, known as a 'cutdown,' in his groin area for another IV line.
Deborah Denno, a Fordham Law School professor who has studied executions for more 25 years, said executions should take seven-to-ten minutes from the beginning of the IV insertion process until the moment the prisoner is declared dead.
'It's a sign of desperation [on the part of the execution team], and it's a sign of an unqualified executioner,' Denno said.
Before Dixon was put to death, the last execution in Arizona took place in July 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over nearly two hours. Wood snorted repeatedly and gasped before he died. The process dragged on for so long that the Arizona Supreme Court convened an emergency hearing during the execution to decide whether to halt the procedure.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
A convicted murderer dies ...> so what!
His sentence was carried out 44 years after the crime. That is way wrong but better than in many European countries where he would serve seven and get out.
Why are these people so incompetent?
He got 25 MINUTES more than he should have.
I do not know the details of this specific execution.
However, condemned men in the USA do beat on their arm and thigh veins for weeks before an execution to make an IV impossible or non-functional.
If it took more than 1 person to insert an IV, then it’s pry because he didn’t make it easy for them. Notice how there was no reporting about the prisoner’s demeanor.
Even a dullard could have chambered a round and blown his brain out, most painlessly, in no more than what? 20 seconds?
A lot cheaper, too!
You’re putting the guy to death, how pleasant can you make it for him?
43-44 years AFTER he murdered his 21 year old victim before he was executed??? That’s an obscenity!!!
And his victim certainly did not die peacefully.
I’m sure there are plenty more animals on death row the executioner can practice on. Practice makes perfect!
25 minutes.... Minor issue for this POS. Why did it take 44 years to put him to death?
That state should switch to the guillotine. Hard to botch an execution that way :)
How many minutes did it take his victim to die?
THAT should be the story.
It took 3 nurses about 5 attempts over about an hour to get an IV in a family member’s arm in the ER yesterday.
They finally got a pro who used ultrasound to find a vein and guide the needle to it. Even then, it probably took him 10 minutes.
Not enough practice...
Bring back the firing squad, modernized with remote operated, push-button firing.
Fast, simple, effective, cheap.
These folks were likely amateurs as the left has threatened everyone with a license.
The state acts in our place. An execution is an execution. Nasty work no matter what. It is only “botched” if it fails to deliver a dead inmate.
Bullets or gas. Not sure why they just don’t do heroin or something like that that they can inject or ingest.
The left got the feels for firing squad executions as somehow barbaric. Ditto old sparky. So executions devolved into this injection farce as somehow being more humane. Obviously not from this latest comedy special. It’s also courtesy of the left why this took 44 years to happen. Also obvious this isn’t a priority for reform from pols either.
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