How do you discipline someone who botched an execution?

Make them watch the video of the man and his family suffering.

I will chalk this up to incompetence and not malice. So, fire them and revoke their medical license.

You don’t. The fault is with the system and it’s training of the executioner, but most of the blame falls on the inadequate methods allowed.

@kritiper I change my answer to yours.

@kritiper But the same situation occurring in a hospital setting would be disciplined, no? Take the lethal injection drug out of the scenario, of course.

Discipline would completely depend on their facility’s policies and if they violated it. If they followed policy completely and it was just a series of unfortunate events, then it would be an educational moment and a time to review the policy and make changes. No discipline necessary.

If they violated the policy, then disciplinary action would be based on their policy for discipline. Without knowing all the details of their policy on IV access, it’s hard to say what should happen.

IV drug administration is not done through arteries. It causes the vessel walls to spasm, can cause necropsy, and moves the drug away from the heart/lungs and not to it. I would be extremely surprised to hear that injecting a drug intended to stop the heart into a femoral artery is within protocol.
I cannot find any examples of drug administration through arterial catheters.
It makes me wonder if a doctor is present. Who pronounces death? What is the level of training for someone authorized to kill someone by lethal injection?

My question would be were they really going for the femoral artery or were they going for the vein? I read the article you posted. It states that the autopsy shows that it looks like they went into the artery, but it doesn’t say they intentionally went into the artery. In fact, the autopsy report linked to in the article doesn’t even mention the femoral artery. According to this article there was a physician present. This article also never mentions an arterial line and that they lost the IV site. It does mention that they were successful able to give him one medication, Versed, to put him asleep. Which shows they did have access at the beginning. The article also says that he started thrashing around, so it’s very possible the IV became dislodged and they had difficulty obtaining another site. It can be very difficult to start an IV on someone that is thrashing around.

Overall, without being there or speaking directly to those that were, it’s hard to say if disciplinary action is warranted or not. It sounds like they are in need of a policy and medication change.

Given the thrashing, I wonder if they should consider intraosseous (IO) administration?

Somehow I doubt a prison would have the means to start an IO. I’ve been in ERs that don’t even have that ability.

Maybe we’re spoiled here because of the altitude and the potential for trauma (olympic training ski resorts)

Regarding how they could miss veins or deliver the drug in an illogical way: my understanding is that the reason some of these people are working in the prison system in the first place is that they screwed up at their regular medical gigs. These are not stellar performers.

Regardless, yes they should be held accountable for not being able to follow the protocols. And the protocols themselves should be overhauled. Or maybe the state should just stop killing people. Oops, did I say that out loud?

Here’s a piece talking about the types of people administering lethal injections.

And here’s another.

Good management would demonstrate the proper way to do something which had been botched, soooooo, strap ‘em down, and go throught he proper technique step by step. :-)

Execute him the same way. Slowly and painfully. While being forced to look at a sign, reading “this is what you deserve”.
Do the same to the judge and jury that gave the original guy the death penalty.
Make their families watch. Then execute them, too, slowly and painfully.

You hold the Governor and Judge accountable for this barbaric form of justice and vote their sorry asses out of office.

I guess I would have them watch a video (if I could get my hands on one) of the killer beating, raping and burying a teen age girl still alive so the executioner would not have any guilt.

Um, wow. Okay. I hope I never cross your path if there’s a purge.

why all the sorrow for the killer but none for the victim? I hope I never cross the path of many here.

Who said there was no sorrow for the victim? I support the death penalty. I do not support torture.

I’m rather surprised that anyone involved in the medical profession would actually volunteer to take part in any execution, this including emergency medical technicians, because these people are supposed to be saving lives, not taking them. Perhaps part of the problem is only incompetent people can be used to take part in executions because of my above points.

I’ve been the victim of crime myself, including vicious assaults, and I’ve had family members and friends who were victims of violent crime themselves. I’ve already told my mom not to seek the death penalty if something happened to me, because she vividly supports it. There’s no freaking way I want a corrupt state and a hypocritical society that generates monsters to be willing to murder others on ‘my behalf’.

It’s difficult for me to respond here in a productive way since I oppose the death penalty, and the concept of ‘humane’ executions likely will prolong the use of capital punishment. I’ll answer this question with a very hesitant ‘yes’, since I don’t support torture. However, witnesses should not be removed from their rooms during botched executions. If people are going to support executing inmates already in their custody they should have to watch what they support doing to others.

There should be severe punishment for breaking the Hippocratic oath, especially in such an overt manner.

@ragingloli I don’t believe emergency medical technicians take the actual Hippocratic oath, but they may have something similar, I don’t know. EMTs have only been involved in executions since lethal injections started replacing other methods of execution. In the past private citizens, prison officials and even law enforcement have taken part in executions. I find it odd that law enforcement personnel have taken part in modern era firing squads since they’re supposed to protect and serve too, not murder.

Why would you punish someone for botching this procedure? It is only being performed on a condemned convict who must surely be guilty anyway.

Give the botcher a bonus for trying.

”It is only being performed on a condemned convict who must surely be guilty anyway.”
Yeah, you do not know much, do you?

@Dan_Lyons so it is okay to torture prisoners of the United States Justice System?

They allow torture to take place on a daily basis in prisons and jails throughout the US, @GloPro Or maybe you think all that mansex they talk about inside is fun and games. (Maybe prison today is actually a reward to gay persons?)
The torture takes place in the beginning stages when a newly arrived inmate begins the process of becoming imprisoned. Maybe he jokes around and talks out of turn.
I have seen the sheriffs beat the living crap out of human beings for this sort of offense.
Prison life is a form of slavery (legal) and torture (also legal).

I am not saying it is okay. It is not okay ever to torture anyone. Read below :

@ragingloli With your gift of sarcasm I am surprised at your inability to see it in others.

“United States Justice System”

<laughing>

@Dan_Lyons You said it yourself that torture is not OK. Torture at the hands of another prisoner is not the same as torture at the regulated hands of the state.

Oh I see what you mean @GloPro. I guess botching the execution is a form of torture, and therefore cruel and unusual as well.
But in this case with the State employing minimum wage workers for the task, I imagine the punishment will be somewhat lenient.

@Dan_Lyons I’m reasonably certain there are innocent people currently on death rows in most countries with capital punishment, including America. We exonerate at least more than one death row inmate every year here.

I agree with you about prison rape not being taken seriously, and some of the comments I’ve seen coming from those who actually think this is a good thing kind of makes me want to do something to them I wouldn’t be allowed to write here. There are innocent people in jails and prisons, and there are actually respectable people serving time in these institutions as well. Outside of these factors indifference to prison rape is a violation of the Eighth Amendment as well, because you’re in prison to do time, not to get raped and get a death sentence from sexually transmitted diseases.

Ironically, even though I oppose the death penalty, I’d prefer this myself not only over a life sentence, but even a ten year sentence. I’m serious, I’d rather be dead. Good luck getting a job when you get out, though some do manage, I suspect most employers throw an application away as soon as they catch a glimpse of that blemish on it.

@Paradox25 I agree with all you say except you’d rather be dead than do a ten year sentence.
Not me. I’d rather be alive. this gives me more time to plan my escape.
And escape I would, too!

@Dan_Lyons Prison would likely be a death sentence for me. I know I’d be a target because of how I look. I’d either be murdered by other inmates defending myself from rape, or I’d be on death row anyways for killing other inmates.

@Paradox25 Do you have a pretty mouth? ~

@GloPro Not too funny since I did a stint in a juvenile facility. Prison rape is nothing to joke about.

Sorry to offend you personally.

However, people make jokes about everything. Sometimes it’s the only way to get by. You won’t find a subject too taboo for Chris Rock, George Carlin, or Dane Cook.

Still, I was only kidding. Sorry to have upset you. No more prison jokes toward you, I promise.

Nothing personal, but I actively donate to this cause so I get a bit emotional about it.

I donate, too.
Mostly soap.

I must be something right on here after all. LMFAO.