Court to decide whether to try again to execute man who survived first attempt

08 June 2014 - 12:25 By Times LIVE
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The state of Ohio tried to execute Romell Broom in 2009, a man who had been sentenced to death for abducting, raping, and killing a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland in 1984.

According to www.motherjones.com, Broom was scheduled to die by lethal injection, but the execution team could not find a suitable vein to insert the IV that would deliver the lethal drug.

They spent two and a half hours jabbing him with needles, eventually bringing in a prison doctor with no experience in executions to assist, but that didn't help either.

After being stuck with needles 18 times, Broom was crying from the pain and emotional trauma, insisting on seeing his lawyer.

His lawyer contacted state prosecutors, who alerted then-Governor Ted Strickland about the situation, who then halted the execution.

The state tried to reschedule the execution for a week later, but Broom's lawyers succeeded in blocking it with an appeal over the central question: If someone survives an execution attempt, can a state legally try it again?

Or does the process itself constitute such torture that it qualifies as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment?

Those arguments will be heard in the Ohio Supreme Court.

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