A federal judge yesterday temporarily halted a rare second attempt at lethal injection of an Ohio prisoner 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.
Lawyers for the state consented to the request for a delay from Broom’s legal team, 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 September 28 on Broom’s lawyer’s 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-and-a-half 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.”
Mr Sweeney also filed an application for a stay with the US Supreme Court yesterday in an attempt to get 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.
He 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. “It is very stressful to think about the fact that the State of Ohio intends to cause me the same physical pain next week.”
While the state consented to the delay, the prosecutor in Cuyahoga County - where Broom’s crime occurred 25 years ago - opposed it, saying the execution had never begun because the lethal drug cocktail never began flowing into Broom’s body.
“Broom’s allegations of cruel and inhumane treatment are wholly unfounded,” Bill Mason said.
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.
In Tuesday’s execution attempt Broom says he was pricked as many as 18 times as prison staff tried to find a suitable vein.
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, and later tried to find an accessible vein in Broom’s feet. During that attempt, Broom said the needle hit his bone and was very painful.
AP