#BotchedExecutions | Kenneth Smith And The Men Sent Back To Their Cells

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This is Botched Executions from Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar.
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For nearly 400 years, states have been putting people to death,
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and some of those executions went horribly wrong. Trap doors
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wouldn't open, flames rose from the electric chair, and needles
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couldn't find a vein. In this series, I'm taking you
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through my book, Botched Executions, one chapter at a time.
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Everything you'll hear comes from the witnesses, the court records,
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and the state's own written reports. Where the accounts disagree,
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you'll hear both. Whatever you believe about capital punishment, these
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are the cases where a state set out to kill
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someone and got it wrong. A word of warning before
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we begin. These are real deaths, described by the people
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who watched them, and some of the details are hard
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to hear. And now, botched executions, four centuries of failed hangings, electrocutions, gassings, injections,
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and firing squads. Part 4. Blown Veins and Nitrogen. 2015-2024.
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In January 2015, Oklahoma used the wrong drug on Charles Warner,
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and then it didn't execute anyone else for more than
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six years. Arizona, after Joseph Wood's 640 gasps, went eight
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years without an execution. Alabama, Virginia and Oklahoma used midazolam,
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a sedative, and in all three states witnesses described men heaving, gasping,
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coughing or vomiting after it went in. By 2017, where
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these chapters begin, the failures had started to look different.
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Before then, a botched lethal injection usually ended with the
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prisoner dead, however badly it had gone. Starting with Alva
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Campbell in Ohio, more of them ended with the man
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unstrapped and sent back to his cell after an hour
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or two or three of needles. Ohio, Alabama, and Idaho
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did that to five men in seven years, and Alabama
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later came back for two of them with a mask
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and a nitrogen line. The same state left Doyle Ham
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bleeding from the groin in 2018. In 2022, it kept
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Joe Nathan James behind a curtain for three hours, and
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that fall, it tilted Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith upright
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on the same gurney and ran out of time with
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both of them. Governor Kay Ivey stopped executions for a review,
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and the review produced no public report. In January 2024,
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the state strapped Smith down again. this time under a
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respirator mask, and the morning after he died, its Attorney
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General called the first nitrogen execution in history, textbook. Chapter 34.
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Alva Campbell and the Vein Light. Lucasville, Ohio, November 15th, 2017.
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On the morning of November 15th, 2017, Alva Campbell Jr.,
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came into the death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional
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Facility in Lucasville in a wheelchair, and three men lifted
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him onto the gurney. He was 69. His lawyers had
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told the Supreme Court he had lung cancer, COPD, prostate cancer,
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severe pneumonia, and a hip replacement. They said he got
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breathing treatments four times a day, and that a prison
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nurse's exam had found no usable vein in either arm.
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the prison had agreed to a wedge-shaped pillow so he
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could breathe lying down. For months, his lawyer, David Stebbins,
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had warned that the state was about to create a
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spectacle of a terminally ill man with tourniquets on his
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arms and legs being stabbed repeatedly to no avail. To
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find a vein, the team used a device that shines
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a light on the skin. They tried both arms. Then
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they rolled up his trouser leg and tried the lower leg.
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the right one by the AP's account and the left
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by the death penalty information centers. Marty Schladen of the
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Columbus Dispatch watched him throw his head back and appear
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to cry out in pain when the needle went into
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his leg. A needle seemed to go in there, and
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then the warden had it pulled. Gary Moore, the director
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of the prison system, called it off about 25 to
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30 minutes after the sticking started and about 80 minutes
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after the execution had been scheduled to begin. It was
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my decision that it was not likely that they were
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going to access veins, he said. Campbell shook hands with
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two members of the team and wiped away tears, and
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through Stebbins, he said, This is a day I'll never forget.
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The AP called it only the third time in modern U.S.
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history that an execution had been halted after it began.
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Governor John Kasich set a new date, June 5, 2019.
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Campbell had been in a wheelchair for on April 2, 1997, too,
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but that time he was faking paralysis. Paroled in 1992,
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after 20 years for a 1972 murder, he was being
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driven that day by a sheriff's deputy, Teresa Harrison, to
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a Franklin County courthouse for an arraignment. In a loading dock,
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he attacked her, took her pistol, and ran. He stopped
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a pickup driven by 18-year-old Charles Dials and spent the
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next hours driving around Columbus with him, stopping at a
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drive-thru for a 40-ounce beer. Behind a Kmart, he told
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Dials to get down on the floorboard, and when Dials did,
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he shot him twice. He was found hiding in a tree.
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We had warned them for months that they were going
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to have this problem, Stebbins said after the attempt. He's
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69 years old and has all kinds of illnesses and
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his veins are a mess. they're just not going to
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get any better. Ohio never got its second try. Campbell
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was found unresponsive in his cell at the Chillicothe Correctional
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Institution on March 3, 2018, and he died of natural causes,
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15 months before the new date. Chapter 35. Doyle Hamm
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and the Needle in the Groin Atmore, Alabama, February 22,
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2018 Doyle Lee Hamm had lymphoma. He'd been diagnosed in
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2014 with a cancer behind his left eye and in
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his skull and treated with radiation. And by 2017, the
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lymph nodes in his neck, chest, and abdomen were swelling.
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Over the seven months before his execution date, his lawyer,
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Bernard Harcourt, a Columbia law professor, told Alabama's courts that
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the veins couldn't be reached. Harcourt retained an anesthesiologist, Dr.
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Mark Heath, who wrote that IV access may be impossible and,
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if it could be done at all, would be extraordinarily
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difficult and bloody. The state's court-appointed examiner found usable veins
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below the knee, and the state agreed not to try
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Hamm's arms. On the night of February 22, 2018, the
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Supreme Court denied a stay at about 8.40 by his
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lawyer's clock, with Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissenting. At about
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9 o'clock, Hamm was taken into the chamber at Holman.
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No reporter saw the next two and a half hours
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because Alabama doesn't let the witnesses in until the lines
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are set. Hamm's account came over the next three days,
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given to his lawyer and to Dr. Heath. Two men,
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he said, worked on both his legs at once, below
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the knees, and they turned him onto his stomach and
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slapped the back of his legs to raise a vein.
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Then a man he took to be a doctor, with
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a woman holding an ultrasound, went into his right groin
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again and again, feeling for the femoral vein. Hamm said
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he began to hope they would succeed so it would
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be over. At about 11.27 p.m., with the death warrant
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expiring at midnight, the state stopped. Commissioner Jeff Dunn told reporters,
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I wouldn't necessarily characterize what we had tonight as a problem,
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and said it had been more of a time issue
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given the late hour. Heath counted 11 puncture wounds. five
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in the legs and ankles, and about six in the groin,
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along with a large hematoma. Hamm urinated blood that night.
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Heath wrote that it could have come from a puncture
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of the bladder, a ureter, the prostate, or the urethra,
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and the pattern of bleeding pointed to a punctured artery.
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This was a bit of butchery that can only be
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described as torture, Harcourt said. Hamm was on death row
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for the January 1987 robbery of Anderson's Motel in Cullman, Alabama,
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He'd shot the night clerk, Patrick Cunningham, once in the
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temple from about 18 inches while Cunningham lay on the floor,
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and left with about $ 350 from the drawer and $ 60
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from the clerk's wallet. A jury voted 11-1 for death.
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On March 26, 2018, the state settled with Hamm, agreeing
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never to try again, and the terms were sealed. He
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died of his cancer on death row on November 28, 2021.
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at 64. Chapter 36. John Grant and the Two Dozen Convulsions. McAllister, Oklahoma.
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October 28th, 2021. From behind the curtain, John Marion Grant
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was shouting, Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! It was
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about four o'clock in the afternoon of October 28th, 2021,
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and he was on the gurney at the Oklahoma State
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Penitentiary in McAllister. Oklahoma hadn't executed anyone. since Charles Warner
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in January 2015, when it had used the wrong drug,
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and that day the Supreme Court had lifted, five to three,
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a stay the Tenth Circuit granted the day before. After
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the curtain rose, Grant let out a string of profanity
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until the microphone was cut. The 500 milligrams of midazolam
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went in, and his upper back lifted off the gurney
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again and again. Sean Murphy of the AP, who had
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watched more than a dozen executions in the state, counted
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about two dozen full-body convulsions. Then Grant vomited. It ran
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down his face and neck, and the staff came in
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to wipe it, and he vomited again. At about 4.15,
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a doctor declared him unconscious. The second and third drugs followed,
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and at 4.21, he was pronounced dead. Inmate Grant's execution
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was carried out in accordance with Oklahoma Department of Corrections
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protocols and without complication, the department said that night. The
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next day, its director, Scott Crow, told reporters some of
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the witnesses' accounts were either embellished or is not exactly
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on point, and that the movements were dry heaves and
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numbered fewer than ten. The attending physician had advised him,
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Crow said, that regurgitation is not a completely uncommon instance
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or occurrence with someone that's undergoing sedation. I will agree,
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inmate grants regurgitation was not pleasant to watch, he said,
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but I do not believe it was inhumane. The autopsy
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came out the following February. It found pulmonary edema, lungs
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weighing nearly 1,400 grams together, vomit in his airway, and
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bleeding inside the muscle of his tongue. That spring, the
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federal judge who heard the lethal injection trial found Grant
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had been under general anesthesia, unconscious, when he was regurgitating,
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and added that if he'd felt anything at all, for
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what the judge put at well under five minutes, he
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would have had no way to stop or otherwise alleviate
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the combined effect of simultaneously regurgitating and struggling to breathe.
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It wasn't enough, the judge ruled, to violate the Eighth Amendment.
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On November 13th, 1998, Grant was already serving 130 years
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for four armed robberies when he stabbed Gay Carter, a
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food service supervisor at the Connor Correctional Center in Hominy,
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16 times with a sharpened shank. One wound punctured her aorta.
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Her daughter, Pam Carter, said afterward, even after Grant was
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removed from society, he committed an act of violence that
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took an innocent life. I pray that justice prevails for
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the other victims' loved ones. Chapter 37. Joe Nathan James
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and the Three Hours Behind the Curtain. Atmore, Alabama. July 28th, 2022.
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Faith Hall's daughters didn't want Joe Nathan James Jr. executed.
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On August 15th, 1994, after a year of threats and break-ins,
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he had shot their mother, his former girlfriend, three times
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in a Birmingham apartment. The girls were three and six.
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I did have hatred in my heart for this man
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because you took my mother, Terrell and Hall said in
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July 2022, but as I got older, became a mother myself,
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I had to realize you can't walk around with hatred
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in your heart. Her sister, Toni Melton, said, Taking his
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life will not bring my mother back. They asked Governor
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Kay Ivey for life without parole, and were told there
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was no reason to change anything. The execution was set
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for 6 p.m. on July 28, 2022, at Holman. The
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curtain didn't rise until 9.02, and the drugs didn't start
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until 9.04. For about two minutes before they started, James
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lay with his eyes closed and didn't move, and when
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he was asked for last words, he said nothing. When
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the drugs flowed, his eyes fluttered, and he was pronounced
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dead at 9.27. Afterward, Commissioner John Hamm said that nothing
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out of the ordinary had happened and that James hadn't
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been sedated. asked whether the team had trouble finding a vein.
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He said, I don't know. The next day, the department
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said the delay had been caused by trouble establishing an
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IV line, and on whether James had been conscious, its
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spokeswoman said, I cannot confirm that. Five days later, a
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pathologist hired by the family examined the body. The group
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Reprieve paid for it, and an Emory anesthesiologist, Dr. Joel Zivett,
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was in the room. they found puncture wounds on the hands, wrists,
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and arms, bruising, and needle marks in muscle away from
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any vein. On the inside of his left arm was
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an incision that Zivit said looked like a cut-down, an
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old surgical technique for exposing a vein that would be
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painful without anesthesia. The department said that, with adequate time,
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intravenous access was established, and later denied doing a cut-down.
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Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center called the
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three hours among the worst botches in the modern history
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of the U.S. death penalty. On September 30th, 2026, Tennessee
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gave Krista Pike two doses of pentobarbital, and she survived both.
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States have been botching executions for nearly 400 years, and
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my new book, Botched Executions, tells the true stories of
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81 of them, from a hanging in Oxford in 1650
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to that gurney in Nashville. Botched Executions is on Amazon
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now in Kindle and paperback, and it's included with Kindle Unlimited.
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Find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash books. Chapter 38. Alan Miller
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hanging from the gurney. Atmore, Alabama, September 22nd, 2022 and
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September 26th, 2024. Alan Eugene Miller said he'd filled out
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the form. In 2018, he Alabama gave its death row
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prisoners 30 days to choose nitrogen gas over the needle.
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Miller had a lifelong fear of needles, and a history
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of nurses digging for his veins, and he said he
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signed the election and left it in the slot in
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his cell door. The state said it had no record
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of it. A federal judge, R. Austin Huffaker Jr., heard
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him testify, found it substantially likely that he had done
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what he said, and barred the state from killing him
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any way but nitrogen. At about 9 p.m. on September 22, 2022,
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the Supreme Court vacated that order 5-4, and at about 9.55,
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more than a dozen officers walked Miller to the chamber
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at Holman. What happened next comes from Miller's lawsuit, as
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a federal court set it out in its opinion. At
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about 10.15, he was strapped down with his arms raised
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above his head because he was too short for the gurney.
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Three men he could identify only by the color of
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their scrubs worked on him for about 90 minutes. The
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crook of his right elbow, where he could feel his
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veins being pushed around inside his body by needles. His
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right hand. His left arm, where the needles went deeper
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in his body than ever before. His right foot. A
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stick there felt like being electrocuted, and his whole body
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shook against the straps. One of the men began slapping
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the skin of his neck. Then a guard worked a
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foot pump and raised the gurney from horizontal to vertical.
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Miller hung there, strapped in by his arms, feet, and chest,
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for what he estimated was 20 minutes, with blood leaking
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from the punctures, telling them the position was giving him
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hell and his foot was killing him. He saw the
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clock say 11.40. Just before midnight, a corrections employee appeared
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by his head and said, Your execution has been postponed.
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In a statement, Commissioner Hamm said the execution was called
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off due to time constraints resulting from the lateness of
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the court proceedings. Two months later, the state settled, agreeing
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it would never try lethal injection on Miller again. Miller
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had killed three men on the morning of August 5, 1999,
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in Pelham, south of Birmingham. He walked into Ferguson Enterprises,
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where he drove a delivery truck, told a co-worker, I'm
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tired of people starting rumors on me and shot Lee
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Holdbrooks and Christopher Yancey. Holdbrooks crawled 20 to 25 feet
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down a hallway before he died. Then Miller drove to
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Post Airgas, where he used to work, called out to
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Terry Jarvis, Hey, I hear you've been spreading rumors about me,
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and shot him too. Alabama executed Miller with nitrogen on
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September 26, 2024, and he became the second person in
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the country to die that way. When the curtain opened
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at 6.12 in the evening, the mask was already on
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his face. I didn't do anything to be in here,
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he said through it. By the witness's reckoning, an officer
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closed the valve on the mask at 6.16, and the
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gas was flowing by 6.18. For about two minutes, he
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shook and trembled and pulled against the restraints. Then, for
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about six minutes, he took periodic gulping breaths that lifted
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his head off the gurney, and his left hand turned blue.
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He was pronounced dead at 6.38. Just like in Smith,
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we talked about there's going to be involuntarily body movements
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as the body is depleted of oxygen, Hamm said. So,
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that was nothing we did not expect. Chapter 39. Kenneth Smith.
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and the First Breath of Nitrogen. Atmore, Alabama. November 17th,
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2022 and January 25th, 2024. Kenneth Eugene Smith was the
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Smith that Commissioner John Hamm meant. On November 17th, 2022,
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Eight weeks after Miller, Alabama strapped him to the same gurney,
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and at about 8 p.m., while he lay there, the
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11th Circuit stayed his execution. The Supreme Court lifted the
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stay at about 10.20, and the team went to work.
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Three men searched his arms, hands, and feet with needles
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by his later account. Then they tilted the gurney until
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he hung in what his lawyers called an inverse crucifixion position,
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and a large needle went into the skin under his collarbone.
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they were trying for a central line, and it felt
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to him like he was being stabbed in the chest.
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At about 11.20, the state called it off, again for time.
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I was strapped down, couldn't catch my breath, I was
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shaking like a leaf, Smith told NPR more than a
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year later. I was absolutely alone in a room full
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of people, and not one of them tried to help
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me at all, and I was crying out for help.
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He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, with vomiting that
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wouldn't stop, Four days after his attempt, Governor Ivey stopped
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all executions in Alabama for a review. For the sake
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of the victims and their families, we've got to get
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this right, she said, adding that she didn't buy for
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a second that any of it was the fault of
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the Corrections Department. The review took three months and produced
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no public report. The state's Supreme Court also changed its rules.
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The governor, rather than the court, could now set the
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time frame for an execution, and it was no longer
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limited to a single day. In 1988, a Colbert County preacher,
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Charles Sennett, hired Smith through a middleman to kill his wife,
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Elizabeth Sennett, for $ 1, 000. On March 18th, in her home,
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Smith and John Forrest Parker beat her and stabbed her
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eight times in the chest and once on each side
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of the neck, and they staged a burglary. A week later,
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as the investigation turned toward the preacher Charles Sennett killed himself.
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Parker was executed in 2010. Smith's second jury in 1996
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voted 11-1 for life, and the judge overrode it and
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sentenced him to death. Alabama took that power away from
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its judges in 2017 without making the change retroactive. The
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state then asked to execute him by nitrogen, a method
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no jurisdiction had ever used to execute a human being.
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On the evening of the execution, As the Supreme Court
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let it go ahead, Justice Sotomayor wrote that Alabama had
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selected him as its guinea pig, and that the world
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is watching. On January 25th, 2024, at 7.53 p.m., the
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curtain at Holman opened. Smith lay strapped down, a blue-rimmed
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respirator mask covering his face from forehead to chin. Tonight,
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Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards, he said,
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and made the sign for I Love You toward his family,
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and ended, I'm leaving with love, peace, and light. Love,
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all of you. The nitrogen started at about 7.57 by
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the witness's reckoning, and the state never gave a time.
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Kim Chandler of the AP counted at least two minutes
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in which he shook violently and writhed on the gurney,
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pulling against the straps, his eyes rolling back. This was
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the fifth execution that I've witnessed in Alabama. Lee Hedgepeth,
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a reporter in the room, said, And I've never seen
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such a violent execution or a violent reaction to the
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means of execution. Then came several minutes of heavy, gasping breaths, slowing,
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and at 8.08, the breathing wasn't visible anymore. The curtain
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closed at 8.15, and he was pronounced dead at 8.25.
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It appeared that Smith was holding his breath as long
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as he could, Hamm said afterward. and he called the
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struggling against the straps involuntary movement and agonal breathing. All
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of it expected. The next morning, Attorney General Steve Marshall said,
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What occurred last night was textbook, and told other states,
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Alabama has done it, and now so can you. Elizabeth
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Sennett's son, Mike, said, Nothing happened here today that's going
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to bring Mom back. Nothing. Chapter 40 Thomas Creech and
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the Eight Needles in CUNA CUNA, Idaho, February 28th, 2024
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Idaho hadn't executed anyone in 12 years, and Thomas Creech
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had been in its prisons for 50. He was 73.
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In the 1970s, he'd been convicted of five murders in
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three states, and at one time he'd claimed 42. At
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his clemency hearing in January 2024, he said at least nine.
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In May 1981, already serving life, he beat a fellow inmate,
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David Jensen, 23, who was partly paralyzed and had a
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plastic plate in his skull until the plate shattered, and
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he kicked him in the throat. Jensen had come at
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him with a sock full of batteries by one court's account.
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Another court's account had Creech using it on him. A
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judge sentenced him to death. By 2024, The judge who'd
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last sentenced him, Robert Newhouse, was telling the parole commission
376
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that executing him now would just be an act of vengeance,
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and the commission split three to three, which meant no.
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At about 10 o'clock in the morning of February 28, 2024,
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Creech was wheeled into the chamber at the Idaho Maximum
380
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Security Institution in CUNA. Three volunteers in white baklavas and
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navy scrub caps went to work on him. In the
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00:25:50.569 --> 00:25:52.910
crooks of his arms, his hands, his legs, and near
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his ankles, each try took several minutes. They cleaned the skin,
384
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:00.839
injected a numbing solution, cleaned it again, and tried to
385
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place the catheter. He looked toward the room where his wife, Leanne, sat,
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extended his fingers toward her, and appeared to mouth, I
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love you. They tried eight times, the state said afterward,
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or ten by his lawyer's count, and the veins they
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reached collapsed. At 10.58, the warden stopped it. and the
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00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:24.500
Director of Corrections, Josh Twalt, made it official. I think
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it would be wrong to call it a failure, Twalt said.
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They did their level best in a professional way that
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was respectful of the process. It was a vein quality issue,
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he said. Creech said later that the needles stung, and
395
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that what hurt was when they moved the needle around,
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trying to get the vein to accept it, and that
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he looked over and seen on his wife's face the
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most devastating, horrible, terrorized look he'd ever seen, He still
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woke up back on the table, he said. After that,
400
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Idaho rebuilt the execution block with a room for establishing
401
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a central line and set a second date, November 13th, 2024.
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00:27:01.940 --> 00:27:06.329
On November 5th, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that a
403
00:27:06.410 --> 00:27:10.230
second attempt on Creech wouldn't be a second punishment. And
404
00:27:10.250 --> 00:27:13.410
the next day, a federal judge, G. Murray Snow, stopped
405
00:27:13.450 --> 00:27:16.230
it anyway.' I' m not going to rush justice in a
406
00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:21.579
case like this,' Snow said. In March 2025, Idaho passed
407
00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:25.190
a law making the firing squad its primary method of execution,
408
00:27:25.609 --> 00:27:29.970
effective July 1, 2026, the first state to do so.
409
00:27:31.029 --> 00:27:34.490
As of October 2026, Creech was still on death row
410
00:27:34.549 --> 00:27:38.329
in CUNA with no date. The statute says that any
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00:27:38.450 --> 00:27:41.380
new warrant will be carried out by rifle if the
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00:27:41.420 --> 00:27:47.319
department certifies the squad is ready. Interlude, the rest of
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00:27:47.339 --> 00:27:52.440
the list. 2015 to 2022. Nine more entries from the
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00:27:52.509 --> 00:27:59.029
years of this part in five states. Brian Keith Terrell, Georgia,
415
00:27:59.329 --> 00:28:05.269
December 9th, 2015. Terrell shot a 70-year-old friend of his mother's,
416
00:28:05.430 --> 00:28:09.759
John Watson, in his driveway in Covington in June 1992
417
00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:13.299
over 10 stolen checks, then dragged him across the lawn
418
00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:16.640
and beat him. At Jackson, the nurse took about an
419
00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:19.269
hour to get lines into him. giving up on his
420
00:28:19.309 --> 00:28:23.009
left arm for his right hand, and he winced several times,
421
00:28:23.069 --> 00:28:26.869
apparently in pain. The department's own log, which BuzzFeed News
422
00:28:26.930 --> 00:28:31.410
obtained later, put it at 54 minutes. As the drug flowed,
423
00:28:31.450 --> 00:28:38.230
he mouthed the words, didn't do it. Brandon Astor Jones, Georgia,
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00:28:38.670 --> 00:28:44.039
February 3rd, 2016 Jones was 72, the oldest man on
425
00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:48.039
Georgia's death row, condemned for the 1979 shooting of a
426
00:28:48.099 --> 00:28:52.660
convenience store manager, Roger Tackett, in Cobb County. The department's
427
00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:56.710
handwritten timeline shows 24 minutes of failed attempts on his
428
00:28:56.750 --> 00:28:59.690
left arm, eight on his right, and one more on
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00:28:59.710 --> 00:29:02.990
the left. Then a doctor spent 13 minutes putting a
430
00:29:03.029 --> 00:29:06.170
line into the femoral vein near his groin and stitching
431
00:29:06.210 --> 00:29:09.529
it in place. The typed version left out the stitching.
432
00:29:10.390 --> 00:29:13.769
Six minutes after the warden left the chamber, his eyes opened,
433
00:29:14.269 --> 00:29:16.410
and he turned his head to look at the clock
434
00:29:16.630 --> 00:29:24.000
on the wall. Ronald Burt Smith, Jr., Alabama, December 8, 2016.
435
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:30.160
In 1994, Smith shot a Huntsville store clerk, Casey Wilson.
436
00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:34.779
The jury voted 7-5 for life, and the judge overrode it.
437
00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:39.250
The Supreme Court stayed his execution twice that evening, and
438
00:29:39.289 --> 00:29:42.549
then let it go. with four justices saying they'd have
439
00:29:42.589 --> 00:29:46.349
stopped it. For 13 minutes after the midazolam went in,
440
00:29:46.750 --> 00:29:52.579
from 1034 to 1047, he heaved, coughed, and gasped, clenched
441
00:29:52.619 --> 00:29:55.539
his left fist, and moved his right arm through two
442
00:29:55.680 --> 00:30:00.799
consciousness checks. Kind of a guppy-out-of-water gasping, Kent Falk of
443
00:30:00.819 --> 00:30:04.519
the Birmingham News said, We do know we followed our protocol,
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00:30:04.940 --> 00:30:08.880
Commissioner Jeff Dunn said. We are absolutely convinced of that.
445
00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:18.119
Ricky Javon Gray, Virginia, January 18, 2017 On New Year's
446
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:21.500
Day 2006, Gray had cut the throats of Brian and
447
00:30:21.539 --> 00:30:25.019
Catherine Harvey and their two daughters, nine and four years old,
448
00:30:25.420 --> 00:30:28.289
in their Richmond basement, and set the house on fire.
449
00:30:29.289 --> 00:30:32.569
Virginia was the first state to use midazolam made by
450
00:30:32.609 --> 00:30:36.809
a compounding pharmacy. The curtain stayed closed for 33 minutes
451
00:30:37.009 --> 00:30:41.690
while the lines went in, and witnesses described gasping and snoring,
452
00:30:42.190 --> 00:30:44.799
and his head turning side to side after the pinch test.
453
00:30:45.660 --> 00:30:48.740
The autopsy found his lungs so full of fluid that
454
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.099
it had spilled into his airway. An Emory pathologist who
455
00:30:52.180 --> 00:30:54.880
reviewed it said the changes were more often seen in
456
00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:57.470
the aftermath of a sarin gas attack than in a
457
00:30:57.529 --> 00:31:02.829
routine hospital autopsy. Four years later, Virginia abolished the death penalty.
458
00:31:05.750 --> 00:31:12.539
Torrey McNabb, Alabama, October 19th, 2017. McNabb shot a Montgomery
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00:31:12.579 --> 00:31:16.299
police officer, Anderson Gordon, five times in his patrol car
460
00:31:16.619 --> 00:31:20.859
in 1997. He'd spent a year suing over the Midazolam Protocol,
461
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:24.940
and the Supreme Court lifted the injunction that night. The
462
00:31:24.980 --> 00:31:28.250
execution began two and a half hours late. He raised
463
00:31:28.339 --> 00:31:31.900
both middle fingers and said, I hate you, and 20
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00:31:31.900 --> 00:31:35.400
minutes in, after two consciousness checks, he raised his right
465
00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:37.960
arm and rolled his head in a grimace. He's going
466
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:40.440
to wake up, one of his relatives whispered in the
467
00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:45.130
witness room. Dunn said the movements were involuntary. I'm confident
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00:31:45.150 --> 00:31:51.549
he was more than unconscious at that point. Clarence Dixon, Arizona,
469
00:31:52.130 --> 00:31:58.940
May 11th, 2022 Arizona's first execution since Joseph Woods' 640
470
00:31:58.940 --> 00:32:02.690
gasps eight years earlier was of a blind, frail man
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00:32:02.710 --> 00:32:06.450
of 66 convicted of murdering a college student, Deanna Bodowin,
472
00:32:06.809 --> 00:32:12.049
in Temp in 1978. Setting the lines took about 25 minutes.
473
00:32:12.859 --> 00:32:15.920
Two tries in the left arm failed before the right took,
474
00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:18.599
and then the team made an incision in his groin
475
00:32:18.660 --> 00:32:21.380
for the second line. They did have to wipe up
476
00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:24.660
a fair amount of blood, the AP's witness Paul Davenport said,
477
00:32:25.400 --> 00:32:28.509
Dixon grimaced and said as they worked, this is really funny,
478
00:32:28.829 --> 00:32:31.529
trying to be as thorough as possible while you're trying
479
00:32:31.569 --> 00:32:39.960
to kill me. Frank Atwood, Arizona, June 8, 2022 Atwood
480
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:43.559
was 66, with a spine so damaged that his lawyers
481
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:46.380
had argued lying flat would be torture, and he was
482
00:32:46.420 --> 00:32:49.460
wheeled in and lifted onto a gurney propped with a pillow.
483
00:32:50.329 --> 00:32:52.549
The team set a line in his left arm and
484
00:32:52.609 --> 00:32:56.829
failed again. and again on his right. When they proposed
485
00:32:56.910 --> 00:33:01.809
the femoral vein, he asked, Why? and declined, then suggested,
486
00:33:02.210 --> 00:33:04.599
Could you try the hand? They've been able to go
487
00:33:04.630 --> 00:33:08.579
in there before. It worked. We killed a man today,
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00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:11.420
wrote Jimmy Jenkins of the Arizona Republic, who was in
489
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.200
the room as Atwood's witness after the state refused him
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00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:17.900
a press credential. Another reporter called it the most peaceful
491
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:27.799
execution he'd seen. Stephen Barbee, Texas November 16, 2022. Barbie
492
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:32.140
suffocated Lisa Underwood, who was pregnant, and her seven-year-old son, Jaden,
493
00:33:32.180 --> 00:33:36.619
at Fort Worth in 2005. His arms wouldn't straighten, and
494
00:33:36.680 --> 00:33:38.750
he'd sworn in court that one would have to break
495
00:33:38.789 --> 00:33:42.329
my arms to make them. The warden had sworn in
496
00:33:42.390 --> 00:33:45.329
reply that the straps were adjustable and lines had gone
497
00:33:45.369 --> 00:33:48.539
into other places before. A line went into his right
498
00:33:48.579 --> 00:33:52.559
hand at 6.14 p.m., and it took 35 more minutes
499
00:33:52.759 --> 00:33:55.019
to get another into the left side of his neck.
500
00:33:55.960 --> 00:33:59.569
The drug started at 7.09, and at 7.35, about an
501
00:33:59.650 --> 00:34:02.289
hour and a half after he was strapped down, he
502
00:34:02.309 --> 00:34:06.089
was pronounced dead. Due to his inability to extend his arms,
503
00:34:06.250 --> 00:34:09.159
the department said, it took longer to ensure he had
504
00:34:09.239 --> 00:34:18.360
functional IV lines. Murray Hooper, Arizona, Nov. 16, 2022 The
505
00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:22.760
same day as Barbie, Arizona executed a 76-year-old man for
506
00:34:22.820 --> 00:34:26.539
two 1980 murders in Phoenix that prosecutors said were a
507
00:34:26.599 --> 00:34:30.340
contract killing. He'd admitted to police early on that he
508
00:34:30.360 --> 00:34:33.840
was involved, and for decades afterward, he said he was innocent.
509
00:34:34.760 --> 00:34:37.860
The AP and the Phoenix New Times said one try
510
00:34:37.929 --> 00:34:40.570
at his right arm failed, and the Arizona Republic said
511
00:34:40.650 --> 00:34:43.469
both arms did. The New York Times had him asking
512
00:34:43.510 --> 00:34:46.949
the witnesses, can you believe this? while the AP had
513
00:34:46.989 --> 00:34:50.110
him shaking his head and saying, I can't believe this.
514
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:54.119
The other line went into his upper leg, bound with
515
00:34:54.179 --> 00:34:56.739
a sonogram, in what the AP and the New Times
516
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:00.340
called the femoral artery and the Republic the femoral vein,
517
00:35:00.659 --> 00:35:02.559
and the three counts of how long it all took
518
00:35:02.860 --> 00:35:06.579
ran from 20 minutes to 40. What's taking so long,
519
00:35:06.780 --> 00:35:09.380
he asked, once they were in, the New Times reported.
520
00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:12.409
The Department of Corrections declared him dead at 10.34 a.m.
521
00:35:14.469 --> 00:35:16.789
two months later, the new governor ordered a review of
522
00:35:16.829 --> 00:35:20.550
the state's executions, and the new Attorney General put them
523
00:35:20.659 --> 00:35:28.320
on hold. Thanks for listening. I've been reading from my
524
00:35:28.380 --> 00:35:34.519
new book, Botched Executions, four centuries of failed hangings, electrocutions, gassings, injections,
525
00:35:34.699 --> 00:35:37.920
and firing squads. If you'd like a list of sources
526
00:35:38.019 --> 00:35:40.219
I used for this episode, and for the book it's
527
00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:44.230
narrated from, you can find the full list at weirddarkness.com
528
00:35:44.289 --> 00:35:48.070
slash botched executions. Scroll to the bottom of the page
529
00:35:48.190 --> 00:35:51.150
for the sources used. If you'd rather not wait for
530
00:35:51.170 --> 00:35:53.679
the next section to be shared in the podcast, the
531
00:35:53.719 --> 00:35:57.179
whole book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback,
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00:35:57.579 --> 00:35:59.079
as well as Kindle Unlimited.