Joseph R Wood III a 55-year-old murder convict was slated to be executed on Wednesday in the state penitentiary in Arizona. He was given a lethal drug in the form of an injection as part of the death penalty procedure. However, the execution went horribly wrong as after being administered with the drug, he was seen snorting and gasping for almost two long hours before he eventually died. According to Arizona’s Attorney General, the process of execution began at 1:52, but the inmate was pronounced dead at 3:49. Normally it takes hardly a few minutes to finish the whole process.
The lawyers of Mr Wood condemned the incident and they even tried to stop it by getting an emergency court order one hour into the execution after they witnessed their client gasping which never really stopped until he died. The efforts of the lawyers went in vain as the court allowed the execution to continue.
Mr Wood was given the death sentence after he was convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her father 25 years ago. He was supposed to be executed quite a while back, but the US Circuit Court of Appeals delayed it because of the non-availability of information about the lethal drugs.
This latest incident of a botched up execution comes just months after a similar incident in Oklahoma where a convict died of a heart attack 40 minutes after being administered with a lethal drug. The Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer has called for a review of the state’s execution procedure involving lethal drugs. She however, believes that Mr Wood died in a lawful manner and didn’t suffer and has disputed the claims of his lawyers.
A lot of questions are being raised about the capacity of such lethal drugs and calls are being made to switch to a more conventional form when it comes to executing death-row inmates.