Arizona’s prisons chief said Thursday that parts of Wednesday’s execution went “perfectly,” asserting that the lethal injection procedure shouldn’t be characterized as “botched.”
Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan said in a statement that IV lines were “perfectly placed” in condemned inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood III’s arms. Ryan added that the IV team, which included a licensed medical doctor, verified multiple times that Wood was comatose and not in pain during the procedure.
Wood lay dying for nearly two hours in what his lawyers said should have been a 10-minute procedure. The lawyers also said Wood was “gasping and snorting for more than an hour” during the execution.
But Ryan said that so far there was no evidence to support the “premature and erroneous conclusion” that the execution had been botched.
“Media reports, some of which were made prior to any information officially being released on the day of the execution, reached the premature and erroneous conclusion that this execution was ‘botched,’” he said in the statement. “This is pure conjecture because there is no medical or forensic evidence to date that supports that conclusion.”
Ryan said he was committed to fulfilling Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) request to carry out a thorough and transparent review of Wood’s execution, and the state would not seek any further warrants of execution until the review was completed.
“Perfectly placed” needles, huh? That’s like saying MH17 had a fabulous in-flight movie.
There are people often found in positions of authority who are so arrogant, so convinced they could never do or be responsible for anything unfantastic, that they can’t acknowledge reality when something has obviously gone very wrong. They’re effectively mentally ill.
Particularly the part where the guy was pronounced dead.
A killer is dead. That’s pretty much what most people really care about.
The truth of the matter is they don’t care that it was humane or inhumane. The only thing that matters is the inmate “got what was coming to him”. If he died in pain, that is even better.
Particularly in Arizona. Why do you think Sheriff Joe is so popular here? Because people think he’s seen to be so tough on inmates, making them wear pink uniforms and eat green balogna.
I don’t think much will really change after this.
Again, another walking, talking example of the current GOTP: Always wrong, but never uncertain.