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Below - The Botched Electrocution of Tiny Davis that forced
Florida to switch to lethal injection
Post-Furman Botched Executions
( Since Capital Punishment was re-instated
)
1. April 22, 1983. Alabama. John Evans.
After the first jolt of
electricity, sparks and flames erupted
from the electrode attached to his
leg. The electrode then burst from the
strap holding it in place and
caught on fire. Smoke and sparks came
out from under the hood. Two
physicians entered the chamber and found
a heartbeat. The electrode was
reattached to his leg. More smoke and
burning flesh. Again doctors found
a heartbeat. Ignoring the pleas of Evan's
lawyer, Russ Canan
(202-292-7676), a third jolt was applied.
The execution took 14 minutes
and left Evan's body charred and smoldering.
Canan describes the
experience in M. L. Radelet (Ed.), Facing
the Death Penalty: Essays on a
Cruel and Unusual Punishment (1989).
(See also Glass v. Louisiana, 471
U.S. 1080 (1985)).
2. Sept. 2, 1983. Mississippi. Jimmy
Lee Gray. Officials had to clear the
room eight minutes after the gas was
released when Gray's desperate gasps
for air repulsed witnesses. His attorney,
Dennis Balske of Montgomery,
Alabama, criticized state officials for
clearing the room when the inmate
was still alive. Says David Bruck, "Jimmy
Lee Gray died banging his head
against a steel pole in the gas chamber
while reporters counted his moans
(eleven, according to the Associated
Press)" (Bruck, New Republic, Dec.
12, 1983 at 24-25).
3. December 12, 1984. Georgia. Alpha
Otis Stephens. After the first jolt
of electricity failed to kill him , Stephens
struggled for eight minutes
before a second charge finished the job.
The first jolt took two minutes,
and there was a six minute pause so his
body could cool before physicians
could examine him (and declare that another
jolt was needed.) During that
six-minute interval, Stephens took 23
breaths.
4. March 13, 1985. Texas. Stephen Peter
Morin. Had to probe both arms and
legs with needles for 45 minutes before
they found the vein.
5. October 16, 1985. Indiana. William
E. Vandiver. He was still breathing
after the first administration of 2,300
volts, and the current had to be
applied three more times before he died.
Vandiver's attorney, Herbert
Shaps, witnessed the killing and said
it was outrageous. The Department
of Corrections admitted the execution
"did not go according to plan." The
physician who pronounced death said,
"This is very rare."
6. August 20, 1986. Texas. Randy Woolls.
A drug addict, Woolls had to
help the executioner technicians find
a good vein for the execution.
7. June 24, 1987. Texas. Elliott Johnson.
It took 35 minutes to insert a
catheter into his vein.
8. December 13, 1988. Texas. Raymond
Landry. Pronounced dead 40 minutes
after being strapped to the execution
gurney and 24 minutes after the
drugs first started flowing into his
arms. Two minutes into the killing,
the syringe came out of Landry's vein,
spraying the deadly chemicals
across the room toward the witnesses.
The execution team had to reinsert
the catheter into the vein. The curtain
was drawn for 14 minutes so
witnesses could not see the intermission.
9. May 24, 1989. Texas. Stephen McCoy.
Had such a violent physical
reaction to the drugs (heaving chest,
gasping, choking, etc.) that one of
the witnesses (male) fainted, crashing
into and knocking over another
witness. Houston attorney Karen Zellars,
who represented McCoy and
witnessed the execution, thought that
the fainting would catalyze a chain
reaction. The Texas Attorney General
admitted the inmate "seemed to have
a somewhat stronger reaction," adding
"The drugs might have been
administered in a heavier dose or more
rapidly."
10. July 14, 1989. Alabama. Horace F.
Dunkins. It took two jolts (nine
minutes apart) to kill this mentally
retarded inmate. The foul-up was
caused by "human error:" faulty cable
hookups. As a result, there was not
enough current to cause death. His attorney
was Steve Ellis of
Philadelphia. Death was pronounced 19
minutes after the first jolt.
11. May 4, 1990. Florida. Jesse Joseph
Tafero. When the state replaced a
"natural" sponge with a synthetic sponge
in the headpiece of the
execution apparatus, six-inch flames
erupted, and three jolts of power
were required to stop Tafero's breathing.
Support for the state's faulty
sponge theory was generated by sticking
a part of it into a "common
household toaster" and noting that it
smoldered and caught fire.
Extensive investigation by the office
of the Capital Collateral
Investigator in Tallahassee questioned
this theory as other states have
used synthetic sponges with no problems.
12. October 17, 1990. Virginia. Wilbert
Lee Evens. During the
electrocution, blood spewed from the
right side of the mask on Evens'
face, drenching Evens' shirt with blood.
Evens' continued to moan after
the first jolt of electricity was applied.
The autopsy concluded that the
blood resulted from high blood pressure
brought on by the electrocution.
13. August 22, 1991. Virginia. Derick
Lynn Peterson. After a physician
determined that the first cycle of electricity
had failed to kill
Peterson, a second cycle was required.
It was the second time this
electrical equipment had been used since
Virginia's electric chair had
been moved to Greenville from the state's
old death house in Richmond. In
the aftermath of the execution, prison
officials announced that in the
future they would routinely administer
two cycles before checking for a
heart beat.
14. January 24, 1992. Arkansas. Rickey
Ray Rector. It took medical staff
more than 50 minutes to find a suitable
vein in Rector's arm. Witnesses
were not permitted to view this scene,
but reported hearing Rector's loud
moans throughout the process. During
the ordeal, Rector (who suffered
serious brain damage from a lobotomy)
tried to help the medical personal
find a vein. The administrator of the
State's Department of Corrections
medical programs said (paraphrased by
a newspaper reporter) "the moans
did come as a team of two medical people
that had grown to five worked on
both sides of his body to find a vein."
The administrator said "that may
have contributed to his occasional outburst."
15. March 10, 1992. Oklahoma. Robyn Lee
Parks. Parks had a violent
reaction to the drugs used in the lethal
injection. Two minutes after the
drugs were administered, the muscles
in his jaw, neck, and abdomen began
to react spasmodically for approximately
45 seconds. Parks continued to
gasp and violently gag. Death came eleven
minutes after the drugs were
administered. Said Tulsa World reporter
Wayne Greene, "the death looked
scary and ugly."
16. April 23, 1992. Texas. Billy Wayne
White. It took 47 minutes for
authorities to find a suitable vein,
and White eventually had to help them.
17. May 7, 1992. Texas. Justin Lee May.
May had an unusually violent
reaction to the lethal drugs. According
to Robert Wernsman, a reporter
for the Item (Huntsville), May "gasped,
coughed and reared against his
heavy leather restraints, coughing once
again before his body froze. . ."
Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk
wrote, " He went into coughing
spasms, groaned and gasped, lifted his
head from the death chamber gurney
and would have arched his back if he
had not been belted down. After he
stopped breathing his eyes and mouth
remained open."
18. May 10, 1994. Illinois. John Wayne
Gacy. After the execution began,
one of the three lethal drugs clogged
the tube leading to Gacy's arm, and
therefore stopped flowing. Blinds, covering
the window through which
witnesses observe the execution, were
then drawn. The clogged tube was
replaced with a new one, the blinds were
opened, and the execution
process resumed. Anesthesiologists blamed
the problem on the inexperience
of the prison officials who were conducting
the execution, saying that
proper procedures taught in "IV 101"
would have prevented the error.
19. May 3, 1995. Missouri. Emmitt Foster.
Foster was not pronounced dead
until 30 minutes after the executioners
began the flow of the death
chemicals into his arms. Seven minutes
after the chemicals began to flow,
the blinds were closed to prohibit the
witnesses from viewing the scene;
they were not reopened until three minutes
after death was pronounced.
According to the coroner, who pronounced
death, the problem was caused by
the tightness of the leather straps that
bound Foster to the gurney; it
was so tight that the flow of chemicals
into his veins was restricted. It
was several minutes after a prison worker
finally loosened the strap that
death was pronounced. The coroner entered
the death chamber twenty
minutes after the execution began, noticed
the problem, and told the
officials to loosen the strap so that
the execution could proceed.
20. July 18, 1996. Indiana. Tommie Smith.
Smith was not pronounced dead
until an hour and 20 minutes after the
execution team began to administer
the lethal combination of intravenous
drugs. Prison officials said the
team could not find a vein in Smith's
arm and had to insert an
angio-catheter into his heart, a procedure
that took 35 minutes.
According to authorities, Smith remained
conscious during that procedure.
21. March 25, 1997. Florida. Pedro Medina.
With the first jolt of
electricity, blue and orange flames sparked
from the mask covering
Medina's face. Flames up to a foot long
shot out from the right side of
Medina's head for 6 - 10 seconds. The
execution chamber clouded with
smoke, and the smell of burnt flesh filled
the witness room.
22. May 8, 1997. Oklahoma. Scott Carpenter.
Two minutes after the lethal
chemicals began flowing into the body
of Scott Carpenter at 12:11 a.m.,
he began to make noises, his stomach
and chest began pulsing, and his jaw
clenched. In total, his body mad 18 violent
convulsions, followed by 8
milder ones. His face, which first turned
a yellowish gray, had turned a
deep purple and gray by 12:20 a.m. He
was officially pronounced dead at
12:22 a.m.
23. June 13, 1997. South Carolina. Michael
Elkins. Elkins's execution was
delayed for 40 minutes while numerous
attempts were made to insert the IV
needles in a suitable vein for the lethal
injection. Because of Elkins'
poor physical condition, the first needle
was ultimately inserted in
Elkins's neck (attempts to use his arms,
legs, feet were not successful)
and the second needle was not used.
24. April 23, 1998. Texas. Joseph Cannon.
It took two attempts to
complete the execution of Joseph Cannon.
The first time, a vein in his
arm collapsed and the needle popped out.
Cannon had laid back and closed
his eyes when he realized what had happened.
"It's come undone" he told
witnesses. Officials pulled a curtain
to block witnesses from seeing what
was happening and fifteen minutes later
the second attempt began.
FL Supreme
Court : http://www.flcourts.org/courts/supct/deathwarrants/index.html
25. July 8, 1999. Florida. Allen Lee Davis. When
hit with the 2,300
volts, blood poured from Davis' mouth.
The blood poured onto the collar
of his white shirt, and oozed onto his
chest. By the time he was
pronounced dead, the stain on Davis'
chest had grown to the size of a
dinner plate, and seeped through buckle
holes on the leather chest strap
holding him to the chair. Davis was the
first inmate to be executed in
Florida's new electric chair.
(source: Death Penalty
Information Center - DPIC)
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Canadian Coalition Against the
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