The Next Botched Execution?

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Tue May 20, 2014 at 01:55:31 PM EST
Tags: lethal injection (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

Update: The full 8th Circuit reversed the panel decision and reinstated the execution. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito stepped up and issued a stay pending a further order by him or the Court. His stay order is here.

Update: The 8th Circuit has stayed the execution.

Via the Atlantic: Andrew Cohen writes that Russell Bucklew, scheduled for execution in Missouri tomorrow, is likely to be the next death penalty disaster for the U.S. That's because Bucklew has serious health issues.

According to the testimony of Dr. Joel Zivot, a defense expert witness in the case, Bucklew "has a tumor growing in his face, occupying the nose, throat, and airway passages and causing him to experience constant facial pain and pressure as well as constant difficultly breathing." The congenital cavernous hemangioma, the doctor asserts, "results in a significant and dangerous compromise" of Bucklew's airways.

[More...]

Dr. Zivot's affidavit is here.

Based upon my review of Mr. Bucklew's medical records, it is my opinion that a a substantial risk exists that, during the execution, Mr. Bucklew will suffer from extreme or excruciating pain as a result of hemorrhaging or abnormal circulation of the lethal drug, leading to a prolonged execution.

As to the state's response, Cohen writes:

Last week, state attorneys replied in a remarkable 12-page document filed with the court. The filing devotes a page and a half to describing the murder of which Bucklew was convicted, as if his crime somehow were relevant, as a matter of law, to his current condition. It is not, but it's there in the brief to remind Missouri's judges that by recognizing Bucklew's rights they would be showing mercy to a killer.

The state also claims Bucklew waited too long to make his claim.

For years, state officials—and state- and federal-court judges as well—failed or refused to "provide