Susie
12-16-2006, 02:39 PM
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-mexecute1606dec16,0,2521627.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Bush halts executions to review procedure
Florida prison staff inserted the killer's needles poorly, a preliminary autopsy finds.
John Kennedy and Maya Bell | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted December 16, 2006
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush suspended the death penalty in Florida on Friday after a medical examiner said executioners botched the insertion of needles in the arms of a convicted killer who took 34 minutes to die.
Angel Nieves Diaz's death by lethal injection took twice as long as usual and required double the conventional dosage during Wednesday night's execution at Florida State Prison.
Bush's action came as a federal judge in California imposed a moratorium on executions in that state, saying the manner in which lethal injection is imposed there may violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In Florida, Medical Examiner Dr. William Hamilton said the findings from his preliminary autopsy of Diaz clearly showed that death-row staff, whom officials would not identify, failed to properly insert intravenous needles into the killer.
"I think the main problem . . . was the fluids to be injected were not going into a vein, but into the soft tissues of the arm," Hamilton said.
Hamilton, though, would not speculate whether Diaz felt pain, even though it appeared the anesthetic failed to enter his veins.
"I am going to defer questions about pain and suffering until the autopsy is complete," Hamilton said.
However, Dr. Jonathan Groner, an Ohio surgeon who has written extensively about lethal injection, said Diaz's execution amounts to "death by torture."
"This is a major disaster. If they can't get an IV in, then it doesn't matter how much drug they give him," Groner said.
Groner said the drugs flowing into Diaz's tissues would have been extremely painful, from the pressure exerted by the syringe and from the drugs themselves, especially potassium chloride, the third and final one administered.
The chemical compound traumatizes internal organs and stops the heart.
But Ted Hires, founder of the Justice Coalition, a victims' rights advocacy group in North Florida, said that however Diaz suffered is negligible compared with that of his victims and their families.
"So what? It took an extra few minutes to die," Hires said. "We have carried this cruel and unusual punishment too far. Whether it's the electric chair, lethal injection or firing squad, there's going to be mess-ups, but there's no cruelty we perpetrate on criminals that comes close to what they perpetrate on their victims."
Diaz, 55, was executed for the 1979 murder of a topless-bar manager in Miami.
Report due March 1
The governor, along with stopping the signing of death warrants, created a commission Friday that will examine the state's lethal-injection process, with a final report by March 1. The timing of that report could allow the state Legislature to carry out any changes recommended to the procedure.
As medical examiner for the Gainesville area, Hamilton has conducted autopsies on many of the inmates executed in Florida during the past 25 years. Twenty prisoners have been executed by lethal injection since 2000, when it was added as an alternative to the electric chair.
Hamilton said that after the execution, Diaz's arms developed "supersized blisters" and discoloration apparently caused by seepage of the quick-acting anesthesia first injected to render him unconscious.
Witnesses, who included news reporters and one of Diaz's lawyers, said the condemned killer's eyes were open and his face was contorted at times during the procedure. He grimaced, shuddered and gasped for air for more than 10 minutes, they said.
Florida Corrections Department officials initially said Diaz had liver disease and that slowed his body's ability to absorb the lethal chemicals. Hamilton said prison records show that Diaz had hepatitis, but the initial examination showed his liver appeared normal.
As a result of the chemicals going into his arms near the elbow, the autopsy also showed he had a 12-inch chemical burn on his right arm and an 11-inch chemical burn on his left arm, Hamilton said.
Solutions 'exited the vein'
But Florida Corrections Secretary James McDonough said the execution team did not see any swelling of the arms, which would have been an indication that the chemicals were going into tissues and not veins.
"The vein was clearly entered," McDonough said. But he conceded that it appeared the solutions injected into Diaz "exited the vein through a different point and entered the muscle mass."
According to John Kastrenakes, an assistant U.S. attorney who won Diaz's conviction in the 1979 slaying, Diaz was a member of a terrorist group in Puerto Rico that espoused violence to keep the commonwealth from being part of the United States.
After an armed robbery on the island, Kastrenakes said, Diaz was required to attend a drug-treatment program, but after an argument with the program coordinator, he stabbed the man to death while he slept.
Diaz fled and committed more crimes in Miami and Connecticut, including the murder of bar manager Joseph Nagy, in an armed robbery gone awry.
"Anyone to be executed should not suffer," Kastrenakes said. "There is a moral prohibition against that, and it is just wrong. But I believe in the death penalty, and Mr. Diaz deserved it."
But Suzanne Myers Keffer, Diaz's lawyer, said her client's "horrible" death will "serve a purpose" by helping to prove that lethal injection, as administered in Florida, is unconstitutional.
"Unfortunately, it took this tragedy to confirm what not only myself but every death-penalty lawyer in Florida has been saying: DOC does not have the training to monitor what's going on or to fix things when it goes wrong," Keffer said.
Separately, after a defense attorney dropped a request to have an independent autopsy conducted on the executed inmate, a Marion County judge ruled Friday that Diaz's body could be released to his family.
Judge Carven Angel, of the 5th Judicial Circuit Court in Ocala, also said that the medical examiner can finish his report and release to the inmate's attorney and family the information taken from Diaz's tissue and blood samples.
Bush halts executions to review procedure
Florida prison staff inserted the killer's needles poorly, a preliminary autopsy finds.
John Kennedy and Maya Bell | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted December 16, 2006
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush suspended the death penalty in Florida on Friday after a medical examiner said executioners botched the insertion of needles in the arms of a convicted killer who took 34 minutes to die.
Angel Nieves Diaz's death by lethal injection took twice as long as usual and required double the conventional dosage during Wednesday night's execution at Florida State Prison.
Bush's action came as a federal judge in California imposed a moratorium on executions in that state, saying the manner in which lethal injection is imposed there may violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In Florida, Medical Examiner Dr. William Hamilton said the findings from his preliminary autopsy of Diaz clearly showed that death-row staff, whom officials would not identify, failed to properly insert intravenous needles into the killer.
"I think the main problem . . . was the fluids to be injected were not going into a vein, but into the soft tissues of the arm," Hamilton said.
Hamilton, though, would not speculate whether Diaz felt pain, even though it appeared the anesthetic failed to enter his veins.
"I am going to defer questions about pain and suffering until the autopsy is complete," Hamilton said.
However, Dr. Jonathan Groner, an Ohio surgeon who has written extensively about lethal injection, said Diaz's execution amounts to "death by torture."
"This is a major disaster. If they can't get an IV in, then it doesn't matter how much drug they give him," Groner said.
Groner said the drugs flowing into Diaz's tissues would have been extremely painful, from the pressure exerted by the syringe and from the drugs themselves, especially potassium chloride, the third and final one administered.
The chemical compound traumatizes internal organs and stops the heart.
But Ted Hires, founder of the Justice Coalition, a victims' rights advocacy group in North Florida, said that however Diaz suffered is negligible compared with that of his victims and their families.
"So what? It took an extra few minutes to die," Hires said. "We have carried this cruel and unusual punishment too far. Whether it's the electric chair, lethal injection or firing squad, there's going to be mess-ups, but there's no cruelty we perpetrate on criminals that comes close to what they perpetrate on their victims."
Diaz, 55, was executed for the 1979 murder of a topless-bar manager in Miami.
Report due March 1
The governor, along with stopping the signing of death warrants, created a commission Friday that will examine the state's lethal-injection process, with a final report by March 1. The timing of that report could allow the state Legislature to carry out any changes recommended to the procedure.
As medical examiner for the Gainesville area, Hamilton has conducted autopsies on many of the inmates executed in Florida during the past 25 years. Twenty prisoners have been executed by lethal injection since 2000, when it was added as an alternative to the electric chair.
Hamilton said that after the execution, Diaz's arms developed "supersized blisters" and discoloration apparently caused by seepage of the quick-acting anesthesia first injected to render him unconscious.
Witnesses, who included news reporters and one of Diaz's lawyers, said the condemned killer's eyes were open and his face was contorted at times during the procedure. He grimaced, shuddered and gasped for air for more than 10 minutes, they said.
Florida Corrections Department officials initially said Diaz had liver disease and that slowed his body's ability to absorb the lethal chemicals. Hamilton said prison records show that Diaz had hepatitis, but the initial examination showed his liver appeared normal.
As a result of the chemicals going into his arms near the elbow, the autopsy also showed he had a 12-inch chemical burn on his right arm and an 11-inch chemical burn on his left arm, Hamilton said.
Solutions 'exited the vein'
But Florida Corrections Secretary James McDonough said the execution team did not see any swelling of the arms, which would have been an indication that the chemicals were going into tissues and not veins.
"The vein was clearly entered," McDonough said. But he conceded that it appeared the solutions injected into Diaz "exited the vein through a different point and entered the muscle mass."
According to John Kastrenakes, an assistant U.S. attorney who won Diaz's conviction in the 1979 slaying, Diaz was a member of a terrorist group in Puerto Rico that espoused violence to keep the commonwealth from being part of the United States.
After an armed robbery on the island, Kastrenakes said, Diaz was required to attend a drug-treatment program, but after an argument with the program coordinator, he stabbed the man to death while he slept.
Diaz fled and committed more crimes in Miami and Connecticut, including the murder of bar manager Joseph Nagy, in an armed robbery gone awry.
"Anyone to be executed should not suffer," Kastrenakes said. "There is a moral prohibition against that, and it is just wrong. But I believe in the death penalty, and Mr. Diaz deserved it."
But Suzanne Myers Keffer, Diaz's lawyer, said her client's "horrible" death will "serve a purpose" by helping to prove that lethal injection, as administered in Florida, is unconstitutional.
"Unfortunately, it took this tragedy to confirm what not only myself but every death-penalty lawyer in Florida has been saying: DOC does not have the training to monitor what's going on or to fix things when it goes wrong," Keffer said.
Separately, after a defense attorney dropped a request to have an independent autopsy conducted on the executed inmate, a Marion County judge ruled Friday that Diaz's body could be released to his family.
Judge Carven Angel, of the 5th Judicial Circuit Court in Ocala, also said that the medical examiner can finish his report and release to the inmate's attorney and family the information taken from Diaz's tissue and blood samples.