Angel Diaz finally died after 34 minutes and two lethal injections in Florida.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said she doesn’t believe Diaz felt any pain. She said Diaz started snoring and became unconscious after the first three drugs were administered and never regained consciousness.
Medical findings contradict prison officials
Diaz, 55, was put to death for murdering the manager of a Miami topless bar during a holdup in 1979.The medical examiner’s findings contradicted the explanation given by prison officials, who said Diaz needed the second dose because liver disease caused him to metabolize the lethal drugs more slowly. Hamilton said that although there were records that Diaz had hepatitis, his liver appeared normal.
Executions in Florida normally take no more than about 15 minutes, with the inmate rendered unconscious and motionless within three to five minutes. But Diaz appeared to be moving 24 minutes after the first injection, grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and appearing to mouth words.
As a result of the chemicals going into Diaz’s arms around the elbow, he had a 12-inch chemical burn on his right arm and an 11-inch chemical burn on his left arm, Hamilton said.
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.
Diaz’s attorney, Suzanne Myers Keffler, reacted angrily to the findings.
“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.”
Governor Jeb Bush halted further executions after medical examiners said that Diaz’s execution had been botched. California halted executions in February after a legal challenge to the state by a condemned inmate that said lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment. The federal judge who ruled in that case said executions could go forward only in the presence of licensed anesthesiologists and other medical proffesionals, but none agreed to participate.
Although I am not personally opposed to the death penalty in some extreme cases, there is no way to kill someone humanely. I am less worried about that though than I am about the executions of innocent people and the overwhelmingly dispproportionate sentencing and executions of minorities. But Mr. Diaz’s execution was handled so badly, and he is only one of many who suffered during their deaths, that the practice should be stopped completely, nationwide, as Senators Feingold and Corzine appealed in 2002, though they focused more on the high number of death row inmates who had been exonerated through DNA testing and reexamining cases that were defended badly. Former Illinois Governor Ryan stopped executions for the same reasons in 2000. He went so far as to commute all of the state’s death row inmate’s sentences to life in prison.
I’m just throwing this up for discussion. I have complicated and tortured feelings about the death penalty in general even though I believe that some crimes are so horrendous as to justify ending the life of the one who commited it.
Hi Super, my thoughts:
I am against death penalty, and I think it is a disgrace that the US is one of very few countries to still have this.
Ca. voted the death penalty down in the state and it was overturned by SC. The people in Cal. spoke on this matter and it didn’t matter.
I am not sure I even believe in prisons, period, at least not the way they are set up these days, and for the most part I don’t see that it does on whit of good in most cases for either the prisoner or the society at large who in essence is paying for these people to do nothing to contribute.
I think that if prisons are necessary, all prisoners who are able should be trained and engaged in work that not only gives him/her a reasonable income so they have a “stake” upon their release, but contributes to the cost of his housing and the system.
Paying people to be idle and then paying people to watch those idle people slowly go crazy is insane in my view.
Anyway, I am happy that their is a stay in Florida and Ca. now.
Hey Super,
I agree very much with diane101, & have a question. In Illinois, I believe there were 17 people who were found to be [through DNA] not guilty, who had been on death row. This was out of a population of 170 on death row. There would have been a 10% failure rate in executing those 17 men/women.
There will be thousands of flights criss crossing the US this holiday season. How many people would be flying if every tenth plane fell from the sky. NONE
You’re right of course. There can be no 100% certainty in all cases that a condemded person is guilty. And in spite of my support of the death penalty in some cases, this is the reason that executions should be halted permanently. The system is so tilted against the condemned and the percentages you cite are the proof of that.
Thanks
Hi Diane,
your comment presents more questions than answers to my conflicting views about this.
We have to have a prison system of some kind. And too many criminals can never be reformed no matter how much caring and money are thrown at them. And there’s always a risk that some will repeat their crimes despite how well they might do in in programs designed to help them overcome whatever malfunction caused their original crime. My biggest problem with the prison system and the sentencing guidlines is the inequity of the punishments given out for relatively minor crimes. Particularly drug crimes. The California three strikes law comes to mind. Most of those convicted probably could be easily educated and reformed back into society. But when you take a kid, ussually a black kid and throw him into a population of violent offenders because he got busted selling 20 dollars worth of crack for the third time he’s going to necesarilly become more violent because of the environment he’s forced to survive in. How can he be sucessfully reintegrated into society?
Thanks
My feelings on the death penalty have done a complete turn around from my younger days when I just assumed since we did this that it was the right thing to do.(Cause my country’s always right, right) I didn’t think about it that much but when I did I again assumed that some really really bad person was being killed to make us all safer.
When I started changing my views-over many years actually-I’m rather ashamed to say it wasn’t particularly for humane reasons but strictly for reasons of justice as my reading showed more and more that innocent people were being put to death. That was/is truly horrifying. I’ve finally added the humane element and think we should not be in the business of executing another human being no matter how vicious and violent their crime.(I try to imagine if anyone in my family was tortured-would I want that person executed or spend life in jail..that’s still a hard call but hopefully I would not want bloodthirsty revenge. You can also add the fact that housing people on death row costs the taxpayers billions more in dollars than housing general prison population.
I’ve read a bit on people doing research on violent prisoners brains and it seems that much of their brain is literally mush meaning they or many don’t even have the capacity anymore to stop their violent behavior or even see maybe how bad it is. I think that violent criminals-all of them-should be studied extensively to find out some of the secrets of the brain and violence. I’d like to see that mandatory.
Like diane, I think the whole prison system as it is now is pretty damn hideous and does no one any good. There’s a lot of things I’d like to see done to completely overhauling prison system but that would take way too much time to write out. Starting of course with the obvious one to do with the racial makeup of prisons.
Something else I’ve long wondered about after reading of so many botched executions is why this is such a problem. If you are going to execute someone how bout asking the Hemlock Society about how to do a simple, easy and painless death? Or is execution really all about revenge and making the execution as grim as possible. Executions do not make us safer and are absolutely no deterent whatsoever for violent crime.
I remember when Florida reinstated the death penalty in the late 70s. I was a teenager working on a construction site. The elevator operator was bedise himself with glee that they’de electrocuted Spenkelink, the first to die. Fried Spenkelink he said, with a smile on his face. Strange that that memory stays with me but I have no recollection of my gut reaction. I have no illusion of how cruel and presumptuous it is to take another’s life because they’ve done something unacceptable to society. But I can boil it down to simple responsibility. Especially where children are concerned. The truly helpless among us. I believe that anyone who kills a child should forfeit their own lives. It’s not a public safety issue with me. It’s not revenge. But I can’t explain what it is. It’s hard.
Thank you Chocolate Ink for your thoughtful comment.
Florida has a history of lurid executions and of botching executions. Doctors have refused, of course, to participate in administering the fatal IV cocktail. In this case, Diaz’s botched execution was due to infiltrated lines in both arms and had nothing to do with his hepatitis — speaking to the level of competency or training of the executioner/administrator(s), perhaps.
The study commission appointed by Gov. Bush can’t address the philosophical question of the “desirability” of having a death penalty. It will be restricted to looking at the current methodology. Gov.-Elect Charlie Crist supports Bush’s actions. No one is discussing scrapping letnal injection, much less the death penalty.
The weird and horrible execcutions include
In no way is Florida going to cease executions in the forseeable future. This suspension is strictly to figure out how to avoid botching them under the current system.
I understand that this is only a short reprieve but I did find it somewhat extraordinary that Florida, of all states would halt them at all. They’re searching for a less publically offensive way to kill prisoners. And in my complicated view I see that as at least something less bad.
The terminally ill lady in California, is denied the only pain suppressor that works [for her], pot. So she`s left to die a long & painful death. The baby-killer must be put to death in a humane manner with stress on cruel & inhumane, being something the death row inmate should not have to endure. funny how things are. What a country.
BTW, Super, I`m for the death of some one who is killed while doing grievous harm to any child, for example. But if one commits a crime & is arrested after the fact, I can`t see killing that person as punishment. If I felt OK with the death penalty, I`d be advocating that penalty for every one who commited the murders of all the US service men/women & all the dead Iraqis. [The warmongers of this admin.] Right now I only hope they spend their lives at hard labor.
I have no problem with the concept of revenge killings. If you took an innocent life or lives you should pay with yours. Never the less I am against the death penalty. The fallibility of the our and anyone elses legal systems makes this a ritual that I in good conscience cannot condone. Rich and innocent you walk, poor and innocent you may die. Good lawyers cost a lot of money so more poor people end up getting killed. Human beings also have a habit of being a bit racist this adds another nasty twist. Can’t condone ritual killings under any pretext. Super, I struggle with this one too. Especially when I’m enraged over an exceptionally heinous crime. But in the end I could not pull the switch. Now if a family member was murdered……