Joseph Wood was supposed to die about 10 minutes after his jailers released\u00a0a combination of midazolam and hydromorphone into his bloodstream.<\/p>\n
Instead, for nearly two hours, the death row inmate snorted and gasped, breathing like a \u201cfish gulping for air<\/a>.\u201d An hour into the execution, his attorneys were on the phone with the Supreme Court, unsuccessfully pleading for an emergency stay.<\/p>\n Wood\u2019s 2014 death prompted a review of execution procedures in Arizona and underscored a problem death penalty states have faced for a half-decade: It\u2019s getting harder to put people to death in the United States.<\/p>\n Companies that manufacture the most common lethal injection drugs have stopped shipping them to death penalty states<\/a>, distancing themselves<\/a> from a practice many view as barbaric. Some medical professionals have taken a similar stance<\/a>, saying their duty is to save lives, not end them.<\/p>\n So death penalty states have improvised, taking a closer look at firing squads<\/a>\u00a0and other, older execution methods. They\u2019ve used compounded cocktails of deadly drugs or ones that are less effective, experts say. But\u00a0instead of sending inmates to a peaceful end, the drugs have occasionally led to horror stories of agonizing executions that further soured public opinion.<\/p>\n Now Arizona has responded with a new \u2014 and some say bizarre \u2014 solution to this quandary:<\/p>\n Death row inmates can bring their own execution drugs.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s manual for execution procedures<\/a>, which was revised last month, says\u00a0attorneys of death row inmates, or others acting on their behalf, can\u00a0obtain pentobarbital or sodium Pentothal and give them to the state to ensure a smooth execution.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m flabbergasted,\u201d said Dale Baich, one of Wood\u2019s attorneys, who is still embroiled in a death penalty lawsuit against the state. \u201cI can\u2019t comprehend why the Arizona Department of Corrections did what it did and what it was thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n The department did not respond to requests to detail the rationale of its new policy or say whether it was the result of criticism following Wood\u2019s death.<\/p>\n But Baich said it\u2019s untenable to think that an attorney who spent years fighting for a client\u2019s life would help kill him.<\/p>\n [Executions and death sentences plummeted this year as capital punishment declined nationwide<\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWhat the state is doing is it\u2019s passing on its obligation to the condemned prisoner or his lawyer,\u201d Baich said. \u201cIf the state wants to have the death penalty, it has the duty to figure out how to do it constitutionally.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the new protocol raises more questions about whether states can humanely execute people.<\/p>\n \u201cThis protocol has a feel of desperation to it, that rather than looking for a reasonable alternative\u00a0\u2026 Arizona instead is attempting to enlist the prisoner and his lawyer to do the state\u2019s job,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the type of proposal that instills confidence in the trustworthiness of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s also, technically, illegal, Dunham said. Only doctors and pharmacists can obtain the deadly drugs needed for executions. Even if a lawyer could get his hands on sodium Pentothal or pentobarbital, transferring the drugs to someone else \u2014 even the state \u2014 would be a felony.<\/p>\n For people convicted after 1992, lethal injection is the only legal method of executing people in Arizona, which has 126 people on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center<\/a>. The state has executed 141 people in total, although no executions are scheduled.<\/p>\n Wood\u2019s was the most recent, and his execution \u2014 and other problematic, drawn-out lethal injections in Oklahoma and Ohio \u2014 have sparked criticism and launched court battles, specifically about the drug midazolam.<\/p>\n As The Washington Post\u2019s Mark Berman reported<\/a>, last year was the first year since 1994 that Oklahoma did not carry out an execution, a stoppage that contributed to a modern low in executions.<\/p>\n Lethal injections are on hold there after authorities used the wrong drug in an execution last year and then almost used the wrong drug months later, according to Berman.<\/p>\n [Oklahoma governor halts execution of Richard Glossip due to \u2018last minute questions\u2019 about the drugs involved<\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n Oklahoma\u2019s most high-profile botched execution drew criticism from former president Barack Obama and the United Nations.<\/p>\n After midazolam was injected into Clayton Lockett, the Oklahoma inmate lived for 43\u00a0minutes \u2014 convulsing, writhing and calling out from the gurney \u2014 before ultimately dying of a heart attack.<\/p>\n Ziva Branstetter chronicled Lockett\u2019s final moments<\/a> in the Tulsa World:<\/p>\n Nine minutes after the drugs were administered: \u201cThe inmate\u2019s body starts writhing and bucking and it looks like he\u2019s trying to get up. \u2026 He utters another unintelligible statement. Defense Attorney Dean Sanderford is quietly crying in the observation area.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"