Bush Suspends All Executions in Florida after Botched Injection

On Friday, medical examiner Dr. William Hamilton said that Wednesday’s execution of Angel Nieves Diaz took twice as long as usual because prison officials botched the insertion of the needles used to administer the lethal drugs. Diaz died 34 minutes after the first injection of drugs, and required a rare second dose of chemicals because the needles were inserted all the way through his veins and into the flesh of his arms.

Hamilton said that he couldn’t make a judgment about whether he thought Diaz died a painful death, because the autopsy results are preliminary and other tests are being conducted. "I am going to defer answers about pain and suffering until the autopsy is complete," he said. Diaz, 55, was executed for murdering the manager of a topless bar in Miami during a holdup in 1979.

Dr. J. Kent Garman, a former professor of anesthesia at the Stanford School of Medicine, said that missing a vein when administering the injections used for executions would cause both psychological and physical discomfort. "All the drugs would be much slower to affect the body because they're not going into a blood vessel. They're going under the skin. They take a long time to be absorbed by the body," said Garman, who is opposed to lethal injection as a means of execution. According to Garman, an inmate would remain conscious for a longer period of time and would probably be aware of increased difficulty breathing and angina pain caused by the interruption of blood flow to the heart.

Prison officials had said that Diaz needed the second dose of lethal chemicals because he had liver disease that caused him to metabolize the drugs more slowly. But Hamilton’s report said that although Diaz’s records said he had hepatitis, his liver appeared normal upon autopsy.

Lethal injection executions usually take no more than about 15 minutes, with the inmate becoming unconscious within 3-5 minutes. But in Diaz’s case, he continued moving until about 24 minutes after the first injection, and he appeared to be grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, and mouthing words. Because the chemicals went into the skin around Diaz’s elbow, rather than into his vein, he had chemical burns on his right and left arms after he died, Hamilton said.

Suzanne Myers Coffer, Diaz’s attorney, was furious upon the release of the autopsy results. "This is complete negligence on the part of the state," she said. "When he was still moving after the first shot of chemicals, they should have known there was a problem and they shouldn’t have continued. This shows a complete disregard for Mr. Diaz. This is disgusting." In light of Diaz’s case, Gov. Bush created a commission to examine the state’s lethal injection process. He has halted the signing of any more death warrants until the panel completes its final report by March 1, 2007. The governor wants to ensure that the process used in Florida does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

David Elliot, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said that his group had been in touch with experts who told them liver disease was probably not the correct explanation for why Diaz’s death took so long. "Florida has certainly deservedly earned a reputation for being a state that conducts botched executions, whether it’s electrocution or lethal injection," Elliot said. "We just think the Florida death penalty system is broken from start to finish." Florida stopped using the electric chair in 2000 after two inmates’ heads caught fire during executions in the 1990s.

Lethal injection is the preferred method of execution in 37 states. In Florida, 20 people have been executed by lethal injection since 2000.