If At First You Don't Succeed...

This is a ghastly story from the Buckeye State:

CINCINNATI — The State of Ohio plans to try again next week to execute a convicted rapist-murderer, after a team of technicians spent two hours on Tuesday in an unsuccessful effort to inject him with lethal drugs.

This is the first time an execution by lethal injection in the United States has failed and then been rescheduled, according to Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, in Washington.

The only similar case in modern times, Mr. Dieter said, occurred in Louisiana in 1946, when electric shock failed to kill a convicted murderer, Willie Francis. He was electrocuted the next year, after the United States Supreme Court ruled that executing a prisoner in the wake of a failed first attempt was constitutional.

Lethal injection was originally promoted as more humane than other techniques.  Of course, the same was said of the guillotine in its day.

I am sure the good people of the great state of Ohio will work it out.  As to the convict:

Mr. Broom was convicted of the 1984 abduction, rape and killing of Tryna Middleton, 14, who had been walking home from a football game in Cleveland with two friends.

More details here and in their comments, including this:

The crime happened five months after he had been released from a nine-year prison lock-up for raping a 12-year-old girl in 1975.

From an account of the case in the comments Broom was busted three months later after an attempted assault on an eleven year old was broken up by the mother.

Comments

[Jack is Back!]

I'd loan one of my veins to them to sew in temporarily if will help.

Being a Catholic I am always conflicted about the death penalty but when you read about some of these deviants you wonder.......

[clarice]

Practice makes perfect. Two child rapes and a third attempted.
Keep trying even if it takes forever.

[PaulL]

I feel sorry for this poor man. He winced in pain when they injected him! Like Michelle Obama said, we are just a downright mean country.

[JorgXMcKie]

Don't we have any death penalties that involve a long, drawn out, extremely painful process that would be appropriate for this guy?

[Steve]

Great post!
We have all 5 ACORN VIDEOS posted on today's COMMON CENTS post...

ACORN QUINT-LOGY
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

[Greybeard]

.45 ACP
Safe, effective, and humane. Do it out of doors so there's no cleanup necessary.

[macphisto]

i'm for the guillotine. it goes so well with the generally Jacobin tone of the times.

[Fresh Air]

Don't we have any death penalties that involve a long, drawn out, extremely painful process that would be appropriate for this guy?

Hook him up to an iPod and make him sit and listen to that DVD of speeches Zero gave to the Queen. He will be begging for the needle in 10 minutes.

[gmax]

Is there anything just inside of cruel and inhumane that we can try? Perhaps, just perhaps, his maker is sending a signal for what he has in store in eternity for this sorry and less human disgusting piece of filth.

[Thomas Colllins]

Jack is Back, I respect the views of those who have moral and religious concerns about the state executing people (whether with respect to any execution or with respect to the proposition that if the death penalty is regularly applied, sooner or later an individual will be executed who didn't commit the crime for which the execution was effected). However, I think a fair reading of the studies indicates that the death penalty does deter. The specific identities of the folks alive today because certain states have death penalties cannot be known. However, in deciding whether to support the death penalty, I don't think that should matter. To put it in an impolite way, both supporters and opponents of the death penalty have blood on their hands simply by the nature of human imperfection. My suspicion is that the opponents have more blood on their hands, although we know many of the identities of those wrongfully executed and don't know the identities of the individuals spared because a potential murderer was deterred by the death penalty (or the specific identities of those murdered in non-death penalty states who wouldn't have been if the death penalty had been in effect).

Although I respect the position of death penalty opponents, I think many of them are intellectually dishonest. Some are fond of pontificating that Texas, which has the death penalty, has a higher rate of murder than non-death penalty states such as Massachusetts. This of course is the height of intellectual dishonesty. There could well be other factors explaining Texas's higher murder rate. No correlation is proven. I have often offered to death penalty opponents that we undertake a slow reading of the studies in multi-state metropolitan areas, where there are similar demographics but different laws in each state as to the death penalty. Noone to this point has taken me up on my offer.

[PeterUK]

"Le Bois de Justice", The Guillotine.Not for the faint hearted,enough to keep you up all night.

[Carl Pham]

Of course, the same was said of the guillotine in its day.

The guillotine is humane, Tom. Read some accounts of its use. It is extremely quick, utterly final, and very hard to mess up, even if your executioner has very little experience (the principal problem with the previous axe on block technique, or hanging, or electrocution, or, as we see here, lethal injection).

The only difficutly with the guillotine is that it's rough on squeamish bystanders. There's a big ghastly thump, a lot of blood all at once, and the hideous image of a newly severed still-warm head. Whereas lethal injection is very easy on bystanders. Look! He's just going to sleep!

Well maybe. Or maybe he is slowly burning in agony from the potassium, but you'll never know because he's paralyzed by the pancuronium bromide.

It's a sign of the times, perhaps, that what we mean by "cruel" punishment is punishment that's hard for bystanders to watch, not for the condemned to endure.

I am quite sure that if I were to be executed, it would be better to be marched to the guillotine with drama and drums, and then put your head in the machine and then -- oblivion. I doubt one has time to even hear the blade coming down. Compared to being strapped down to a gurney like a lab animal about to be vivisected, and then the indignity of having your veins delicately probed and invaded -- over an hour or two, technicians murmuring as they poke and stab -- so that subtle poison can be injected into you...blech. Now that is dehumanizing.

A man, even a condemned man, should be allowed the dignity of dying like a man, upright until the last possible moment, and all at once in an act of sudden and somber violence. If you're going to kill a man, you damn well ought to be willing to have his life's blood spray all over you. This business of making it all neat and clinical is disgusting.

[PeterUK]

Carl.
Read the link above your post.

[dbp]

I think asphyxiation is painless if it is done with inert gasses such as nitrogen or Argon. The feeling of suffocation comes from the build-up of CO2 in the blood and this does not happen when breathing an inert gas.

Plus, there is no messy clean-up as one would have with the Guillotine or the .45ACP.

[Janet]

Speaking of the death penalty, I believe the DC sniper has been "scheduled" to meet his maker. Every time I hear about him I always think "is that guy STILL alive".

[Fresh Air]

Well, I think we've got some good suggestions here. Now if we can just get a few more murderers through the appeals process...

[Captain Hate]

Sorry but I can't work up any sympathy per ACLU for this rapist/murderer; although the inability of the state to effectively pull off the planned execution should give some pause to the fans of ObamaDon'tCare, if they were capable of doing anything other than reciting dogma.

[sylvia]

Jane Velez M... (forget her final name) on HLN has been actively calling for a national fight against the violence against women this week. I wonder if anything can be done as a society, through education or promotional ads, less violent media or such, to change the attitude of guys like these, or if it is completely hardwired.

One thing I noticed whenever there is some article about relationships and women, is that there are a lot of comments from men that are very angry and dismissive towards women. Things like, well women just want to marry for money and buy expensive shoes and then use the guy and dump him and take the kids away. They are surprisingly negative and there are usually a lot of them.

But what's funny with these comments is that I don't think they reflect reality. Women are the ones with the biological clock and women are still subordinate in a patriarchcal society in terms of social and financial power, hence they are under greater pressure to marry earlier and have the man stick around and support them. Women, especially mothers, are not known to go out late night and take off from home to go to strip clubs and hire hookers that much, as men are known to do.

So my point is, a lot of "normal" men seem to be operating under a lot of barely hidden anger towards women, much of it I would say being delusional. So of course the abnormal men must have more anger. Is there something we can do there as a society to deal with this underlying anger, and effect the mindset, which might translate into less violence towards women?

[Extraneus]

Pretty unsportsmanlike, if you ask me. Wasn't there some kind of double-jeopardy rule in the old days where if you survived the first hanging attempt, you couldn't be re-executed?

[PeterUK]

Why not outsource the job to the Taleban?

[sylvia]

testing

[PeterUK]

trying!

[Captain Hate]

unconvincing

[Jane]

I was listening to Howie Carr this afternoon and James Curley's dad was on. James Curley was the 9 year old who was raped and killed by the NAMBLA guys in 1991 - left dead in a river in Maine. Anyway, one of the killers was seeking his 3rd release for compassionate grounds to go to his father's funeral. He has already been allowed to go to his mother and sister's funerals. (Funny he is the last to die, must be the fact that we have no death penalty.) At any rate underdog Deval Patrick seeking reelection decided it was a good thing to revoke the compassion privilege - the same privilege we never accord to our military.

But don't worry, he is up for parole in 12 years.

[Janet]

((Why not outsource the job to the Taleban?))

too funny!...could be part of Obama's job creation numbers.

Ummm, errr,under my ad---ministration we ummm, errr gave gainful employment to 3 members of the tal-e-ban...ummm, errr

[bgates]

But what's funny with these comments is that I don't think they reflect reality.

Would you believe, sometimes I think the exact same thing.

[Janet]

I don't know where to post my off topic "things" tonight...anyway, LUN an American Thinker article comparing Obama to Timothy Treadwell (the grizzly man).

getting a little too close to danger -

[Largebill]

If this crime was committed in 1984 why are we even having this conversation in 2009??? No excuse for that kind of excessive delay. Arrest the criminal, hold the trial, one week after the trial consider any legitimate appeals, next week carry out the sentence.

[clarice]

Thanks for bringing that to my attention,Janet.

[Janet]

Sure Clarice...

and tonight the WaPo is finally doing some investigating (or pushing back) on the ACORN story. LUN

They are giving the ACORN employee, Tresa Kaelke a platform.

[Rocco]

When I read how those two monsters raped, murdered and stuffed his young body into a plastic tub, then threw it in a river, my heart broke for that young Curley boy! Didn't the voters of MA vote for and pass a referendum legalizing the death penalty? I think it was after the Curley murder?

[Jane]

Well Rocco, the people don't matter, the legislators are much much smarter and there is no news there.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Jane-

You've got mail.

[matt]

janet;

did she, in fact, shoot her husband? What were the circumstances? Can we get a copy of the police report? That might help clarify some of the issues very quickly. She sounded pretty cold blooded when I watched, and not all that smart.

The WaPo, has in the past 2 months, sunk to new lows whether in smearing McDonnell or virtually anything by E.J. Dionne or in so many other puerile articles they have written attacking the opponents of the left. Intellectually dishonest and not that smart about it. Toast. The NYT. toast. NBC. toast.

[Janet]

matt - agree, amen, dittos, true dat!

[PD]

However, I think a fair reading of the studies indicates that the death penalty does deter.

It certainly deters the person who gets the penalty.

Which, it seems to me, is the point of interest. Whether it deters other people is a secondary question.

[PD]

I don't get these stories about botched "lethal injections." Veterinarians put cats and dogs to sleep painlessly all the time. What is the big difficulty with humans?

Someone help me out here.

[Gmax]

I think the recidivism rate for dead men walking and dead men really not walking is exactly zero. I am going to go out on a limb here and declare that to be one to one correlation and thus, yes by gum it does deter those convicted on heinous crimes of offending again. Is there some dispute on that?

[Russ]

The state of Ohio recently revised its lethal injection protocol, partly in response to lawsuits filed by several death row inmates. It could be argued that the new protocol "worked," since they did not proceed to inject Broom when they were unable to find a good vein. Lethal injection is now Ohio's only means of execution. Don't know what they'll do if they can't find a vein next time. I doubt death penalty opponents will suggest an alternative means.

[Captain Hate]

Dogs and cats don't abuse intravenous drugs to make their veins hard to hit or get morbidly obese to make 'em hard to find. Other than that, I got nothin'....

[PD]

I am going to go out on a limb here and declare that to be one to one correlation and thus, yes by gum it does deter those convicted on heinous crimes of offending again. Is there some dispute on that?

Exactly. The idea that the death penalty is bad because it "doesn't deter" makes no sense to me. We impose penalties on those who commit crimes, not because we think it's a great idea to punish people *for the purpose of scaring other people.*

[Gmax]

Ask any policeman and he will tell you the bulk of crimes are committed by the serial you name it, and if you take those out of the population, the crime wave drops off dramatically.

[bgates]

I am going to go out on a limb here and declare that to be one to one correlation

Somehow puts me in mind of this little story:

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.
The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.

As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"

Somehow the people who have that little story embroidered on doilies don't seem to like Ol' Sparky.