DEAD MAN TALKING

Romell Broom achieved a macabre notoriety this past month when he became the first man to survive his date with the needle. Not just in Ohio, but anywhere.

The convicted rapist and murderer endured more than two hours of
poking and stabbing before his date with death was called off
indefinitely. His executioners could not find a vein to plant
intravenous shunts, and they prodded him with needles at least 18 times
to no avail, says Tim Sweeney, his lawyer. 

The eyes of the world are on Ohio now, and many are questioning our
death-penalty apparatus.

It was the first time an execution was called off while in progress,
but it wasn’t the first time our executioners unintentionally prolonged
their work. In 2006, inmate Joseph Clark uttered “It don’t work”
as his handlers bungled an IV attachment and delayed his doom for more
than an hour. In 2007, techs took close to two hours to find a vein and
put down obese inmate Christopher Newton; at one point, they granted
Newton a restroom break.

Broom lived to tell his tale in an affidavit filed in Columbus
federal court days after surviving the death chamber. He described his
time on a prep table as two technicians (he called them “nurses”)
struggled to find veins in his arms. Blood gushed as they pricked
him. At one point, “The female nurse left the room,” writes
Broom. “The correction officer asked her if she was OK. She
responded ‘no’ and walked out.

“I tried to assist them by helping to tie my own arm,” recounts
Broom. Witnesses said Broom turned on his side and flexed his arms to
further assist. A third tech came into the room, and the workers
repeatedly stabbed Broom in the arms, right ankle, lower right leg and
right hand.  Broom said he bled, bruised and felt a needle hit his
ankle bone. The executioners’ futile attempts left scores of
puncture marks.

When Ohio prison director Terry Collins came into the room to tell
Broom that the execution would be postponed, “Collins indicated that he
appreciated my cooperation and noted my attempts to help the team.”

Complications have confounded the Ohio execution team in one out of
every 11 lethal injections. Prison officials have defended their
employees, a group of at least a dozen men and women whose anonymity
remains protected by court order.

In the face of international scrutiny, prison officials continue to
defend Ohio’s death team. “We believe they do a job most people
couldn’t do,” says Julie Walburn, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department
of Rehabilitation and Correction. “We believe they do it
professionally and appropriately.”

Walburn says the state is not preparing a formal report in response
to the Broom episode.

All states that practice capital punishment maintain strict privacy
policies, with California ranking as the most open, says Richard
Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center. This shroud poses a fundamental problem for states looking
to defend their actions when questions arise. “With the fact that these
mistakes happen, the explanation of ‘Trust me, we’re doing this right,’
loses credibility,” says Dieter.  “There needs to be access,
observation, to see what’s claimed is what really happens. 

“This is about keeping control of public perception, that lethal
injection is antiseptic, a pain-free method,” he continues. “It could
be said that a firing squad or the guillotine are quicker and painless,
but people don’t want to go there.”

Critics of the death penalty say a lack of public review fosters
secrecy and denies accountability. The American Civil Liberties
Union of Ohio filed a public-records request in an attempt to learn
more about execution preparations, says Carrie Davis, the
organization’s staff counsel. There’s no way to judge execution teams’
credentials or work history, and because the state does not request
autopsies of the dead inmates, there’s no way to determine if the drugs
were administered correctly.

“These people are carrying out a state-sanctioned killing in our
name,” says Davis. “These are our tax dollars at work. This
is not a private enterprise. They are state employees.”

What little we know about execution team members emerged in March in
a federal lawsuit by Ohio death-row inmates challenging lethal
injection. Ohio’s former executioner (he retired in July, according to
the Associated Press) testified while hidden behind a shield. He
rattled off a job history that included hospital aide, paramedic and a
manager for inmate vocational programs. Neither he nor his
understudy — also an EMT —received training on the use or
exact effects of the drugs in relation to certain dosages, according to
court records.  Instead, through his mirrored window, the
53-year-old career prison worker watched dying inmates “for vital-sign
changes, watching for movement changes, just watching the person as I
would if it was a person in my care.”

Dr. Jonathan Groner takes issue with what he deems unqualified
personnel using the instruments of his vocation — IVs,
syringes and drugs — to kill. Groner, a professor of clinical
surgery at the Ohio State College of Medicine and a staunch
death-penalty abolitionist, says Ohio is caught in a “Hippocratic
paradox.” Those most qualified to help the state in executions —
doctors, nurses, practicing EMTs — are forbidden from taking part
in executions by codes of ethics and state boards. (Recently, the
Ohio board that governs EMTs ruled that the state’s executioners,
despite their EMT certification, were outside the board’s jurisdiction
and thus free from sanction because they are not representing
themselves as EMTs during the executions. At least two emergency
medical technicians are part of a squad largely comprising prison
guards, according to the Associated Press.)

Trained medical professionals are more likely to handle unexpected
situations with success than the people the state uses in executions,
says Groner. “People who put in IVs everyday — such as city
paramedics, nurses in a hospital — they don’t have these
[technical] problems. For a person who does it for a living, it’s like
driving a car.” In the pressure cooker that is the state death chamber,
he adds, “you match the most difficult cases with the least
experienced” personnel. 

Problems with lethal injection forced Florida governor Jeb Bush to
temporarily delay capital punishment in 2006 after an autopsy showed
that the chemicals had infiltrated Angel Diaz’ muscle tissue instead of
his bloodstream. New Jersey temporarily halted the death penalty as it
revised its execution procedures, but abolished the practice in 2007
after a greater debate on the capital punishment. Maryland,
California and North Carolina have frozen their systems as they debate
policy.

Ohio is the only state that has a law that requires a quick and
painless execution, and Broom’s lawyer, Tim Sweeney, argues that the
state has not fulfilled that requirement.

“I think there are serious questions of whether the state is using
the right people to carry out a relatively complex procedure,” says
Sweeney. “If the drug isn’t administered properly, the inmate will
assuredly be tortured to death.”

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost plans to hear Broom’s
arguments in Columbus on November 30 — well after the state’s
next execution, scheduled for October 8. Newspaper editorials have
called for a halt. Ohio secretary of state and U.S. Senate
candidate Jennifer Brunner recently became the highest-ranking state
official to call for a moratorium. 

Governor Ted Strickland’s office has received more than 1,100
messages about the death penalty,” says his spokesperson Amanda Wurst.
She said Strickland cannot legally issue a blanket moratorium, and he
has yet to issue a clemency ruling for Lawrence Reynolds, the next
inmate in line for execution.

Broom’s victim was a 14-year-old East Cleveland girl named Tryna
Middleton. As she walked home from a football game, Broom
kidnapped her at knifepoint, raped her and fatally stabbed her seven
times. I visited her parents on Friday with the hopes of getting
their take on this swirling debate.

Bessye Middleton answered the door, but deferred to her husband, a
tall, burly man who came out onto his porch to speak with
me. David Middleton accepted my handshake and listened coolly, but
he did not want to be interviewed. He said that he’s tired of
exploitative reporters on his front yard and tired of the whirlwind
events that have swept his family into the national spotlight.

When I told him that I had witnessed an execution in 2004, he perked
with curiosity, and we chatted a bit more. I shared with him my
haunting recollection of Lewis Williams’ death. I asked him if the
execution room was as dark as I remembered it. “Like a horror movie,”
he said. 

Then he noted that his daughter was never coming back. It was
difficult to look him in the eye when he said this. He wants to be left
alone, he said. This isn’t a horror movie for him; this is a tragedy he
never asked for. I wished him the best and left. “I’m through with
this,” he said as I walked away. “Whatever happens, happens.”

SANITIZED FOR OUR PROTECTON

The vivid witness accounts of Romell Broom’s failed execution two weeks ago reminded me of the surreal experience of watching the lethal injection of Ohio death-row inmate Lewis Williams in 2004.

Williams, of Cleveland, refused to walk into the execution chamber, so the guards carried him in. He begged for his life as they strapped him onto a metal gurney. 

Time crawled, but my heart and pen raced. The dim glow of subdued lights augmented the spectacle. Williams lay before us on the deathbed. To our left, a partition and a mirrored window hid the faceless, nameless executioner who prepared the fatal dose. From that wall emerged the intravenous tubes that channeled drugs into William’s arms. After Williams gasped his last breath — a tear stain along his left cheek — someone drew a curtain so an unseen official could proclaim Lewis dead.
Despite Williams’ struggles and pleas, the entire procedure lasted just 30 minutes.

For days I pondered what I’d seen, how the execution resembled a piece of macabre theater; how state law dating back to 1885 ended public showcases and ensured that only a few Ohioans saw the executions with their own eyes; and especially how the state forbade its citizens from knowing who stood behind the mirrored window. 

My detailed account of Williams’ demise for the newspaper I was working for made me the target of readers who labeled me a bleeding heart and cursed me for having sympathy for killers. Some accused me of distortion. My lasting impression was that Ohioans did not really want to see and deal with the grisly fruit of our death penalty law, that we did not want to consider the questions surrounding public accountability and that we just don’t care. So for me, like most others, executions returned to their “proper” place: an occasional news article with an unwanted protagonist and the predictable sound bite of justice served.

We have executed 23 men since I saw Lewis Williams die. Broom would have been the 33rd man killed since the state revved up its death machine in 1999. But then Ohio and Broom made history, and not only did my questions resurface, but so did the questions of many others who want to know what exactly is going on.  If we can’t get this right, should we be doing it at all?

dguevara@clevescene.com

This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2009.