Broom
On Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Ted Strickland finally had to put a stop to a botched execution attempt. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Romell Broom’s execution was delayed after 18 failed attempts by the state-employed EMTs to find suitable veins so they could kill Broom.
Here, care of Marc Kovacs, is some awkward Strickland time, as he attempts to explain how the EMTs’ inability to find a vein represents no failure of training on the EMTs’ part and no problems of cruel or unusual punishment in the system more broadly.
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political writer at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
This was horrible. As I listened to the story on NPR last night I felt sick. We should quit wasting money killing people and our souls.
Ladies and gentlemen, a tap dance.
If there was no question of cruel and unusual punishment, then there should have been no need to stop the execution.
So… Collapse your arm veins and you’re immune to the death penalty! Woo.
Or not. Not that I ‘believe in the death penalty’.