Following botched Florida lethal injection: Executions on hold in two US states

In the Florida case, it took 34 minutes and a rare second injection of deadly chemicals for prison authorities to execute Angel Nieves Diaz on December 13. Death usually occurs within 15 minutes, and the individual is unconscious and motionless within 3 to 5 minutes. In Nieves Diaz’s case, witnesses reported seeing him moving as long as 24 minutes after the initial injection, including grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and attempting to mouth words.

As lethal injection is currently practiced, the prisoner is given a deadly cocktail of three poisons: one to deaden pain, the second to induce paralysis and the third to stop the heart. A study published last year in the British medical journal the Lancet, however, concluded that the first drug, sodium pentothal, can wear off before the inmate loses consciousness, subjecting the condemned individual to excruciating pain before the third drug, potassium chloride, causes a heart attack.

The medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Nieves Diaz following his execution, Dr. William F. Hamilton, said that it appeared that the lethal-injection needles punctured through both of his veins, sending the poisons into the small tissues of the arm, dispersing them.

“It really sounds like he was tortured to death,” commented Jonathan Groner, associate professor of surgery at the Ohio State Medical School and a death-penalty opponent, to the Associated Press. “My impression is that it would cause an extreme amount of pain.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/leth-d18.shtml