A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted a rare second attempt at the execution of an Ohio inmate who said his two-hour execution attempt this week was marred by painful needle sticks into his bone and muscles.
US District Judge Gregory Frost issued a temporary restraining order effective for 10 days against the state, preventing a second execution attempt on Romell Broom from going forward as planned on Tuesday.
Attorneys for the state consented to the request for a delay from Broom’s attorneys, who will argue that the pain Broom experienced during the aborted attempt violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 28 on Broom’s attorneys’ request for a preliminary injunction against the execution.
Tim Sweeney, an attorney for Broom, said his client is “relieved,” but noted there is still work to do.
“There’s still a state that wants to execute Romell Broom even though he’s been through this horrific, tortuous two-hour battle with the executioners on Tuesday, and it’s our hope that we can convince the courts that once the state has tried once to execute this man and has failed, that they can’t try again.”
Sweeney also filed an application for a stay with the US Supreme Court on Friday in an attempt to have Broom added to an ongoing federal lawsuit against Ohio’s lethal injection process.
He filed another attempt to get the execution blocked with the Ohio Supreme Court.
Sweeney hopes to achieve clemency for Broom, but failing that, he will argue that his client shouldn’t be executed until a new procedure can be put in place that ensures there will be no repeat of Tuesday’s failed attempt.
“Waiting to be executed again is anguishing,” Broom said in an affidavit filed in federal district court in Columbus.
While the state consented to the delay, the prosecutor in Cuyahoga County opposed it, saying the execution had never begun because the lethal drug cocktail never began flowing into Broom’s body.
Broom was convicted in the 1984 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl after abducting her at knifepoint in Cleveland while she was walking home from a football game with friends.
A central element of Broom’s argument rests on statements made by the US Supreme Court when it upheld Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure in an April 2008 ruling.
The court said that a “hypothetical situation” involving “a series of aborted attempts” at execution “would present a different case,” Sweeney said in his federal court filing.
Chief Justice John Roberts suggested at the time that the court will not halt scheduled executions in the future unless “the condemned prisoner establishes that the state’s lethal injection protocol creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain.”
Broom told his attorneys he was pricked as many as 18 times on Tuesday as prison staff tried to find a suitable vein.
“This is three guys in three years that have had these types of serious problems,” said Sweeney, referring to the attempt on Broom and two other executions that were delayed after difficulty finding a suitable vein. “There’s a pattern here now in this state.”
In an affidavit from Broom that was to be submitted as evidence in the federal district court filing, Broom said officials first tried three separate times to access a suitable vein in the middle of both arms.
After the failed six attempts, he said a nurse tried twice to access veins in the left arm.
“She must have hit a muscle, because the pain made me scream out loud,” Broom said. “The male nurse attempted three times to access veins in my right arm. The first time the male nurse successfully accessed a vein in my right arm. He attempted to insert the IV, but he lost it and blood started to run down my right arm. The female nurse left the room. The correction officer asked her if she was OK. She responded, ‘No’ and walked out.”
“The death squad lead made a statement to the effect that this was hard on everyone and suggested that they take another break,” the affidavit said.
Officials later tried to find an accessible vein in Broom’s feet.
During that attempt, Broom said the needle hit his bone.
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland granted a one-week reprieve on Tuesday after execution staff struggled for two hours to find a vein that would not collapse.
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