[Cerek the Barbaric]

This thread appears to be getting closer and closer to being LOCKED DOWN.

I took a little time to research the cases of "botched executions" Dramnek provided. Due to time limitations, I was only able to find information on the victims of two of the murderers, but I have requested information concerning the rest of the victims and will Post it when received.

Originally posted by Dramnek_Ulk: April 23, 1998. Texas. Joseph Cannon. It took two attempts to complete the execution of Joseph Cannon. The first time, a vein in his arm collapsed and the needle popped out. Cannon had laid back and closed his eyes when he realized what had happened. "It's come undone" he told witnesses. Officials pulled a curtain to block witnesses from seeing what was happening and fifteen minutes later the second attempt began. Joseph Cannon was sentenced to be executed in Texas for the murder of Anne Walsh in 1977. A frequent juvenile violator and runaway from Houston, Cannon was facing jail time for a burglary unless he could find a stable living environment. Anne Walsh, an attorney whose brother had represented Cannon, was convinced by her brother to take the boy in. According to his confession, Cannon had been drinking and taking drugs on Sept. 30, 1977, when Mrs. Walsh came home for lunch. He shot her at least 6 times as she begged for her life, tried to rape her, then stole her daughter's car. July 18, 1996. Indiana. Tommie Smith. Smith was not pronounced dead until an hour and 20 minutes after the execution team began to administer the lethal combination of intravenous drugs. Prison officials said the team could not find a vein in Smith's arm and had to insert an angio-catheter into his heart, a procedure that took 35 minutes. According to authorities, Smith remained conscious during that procedure July 8, 1999. Florida. Allen Lee Davis. When hit with the 2,300 volts, blood poured from Davis' mouth. The blood poured onto the collar of his white shirt, and oozed onto his chest. By the time he was pronounced dead, the stain on Davis' chest had grown to the size of a dinner plate, and seeped through buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair. Davis was the first inmate to be executed in Florida's new electric chair. Allen Lee Davis attacked Nancy Weiler, 37, who at the time was three months pregnant with the family's third child. Davis bludgeoned Mrs. Weiler--who was the corresponding secretary of the PTA at her children's school--so severely that she was barely recognizable when police found her body. Davis brutalized Mrs. Weiler with such force that the trigger guard on the gun with which he was beating her broke, as did the wooden grips and metal frame of its handle. Davis tied up the Weiler's 10-year-old daughter, Kristy--a 5th-grade student who hoped to become a nuclear engineer someday--and shot her in the face, killing her. The Weilers' other child -- 5-year-old Kathy -- tried to run from Davis. He shot her in the back, and then beat her, crushing her skull. There was quite a bit of blood in the Weiler home after Davis had killed the mother and her two children. Considerably more blood than inadvertently appeared on Davis' shirt during the execution. May 7, 1992. Texas. Justin Lee May. May had an unusually violent reaction to the lethal drugs. According to Robert Wernsman, a reporter for the Item (Huntsville), May "gasped, coughed and reared against his heavy leather restraints, coughing once again before his body froze. . ." Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk wrote, " He went into coughing spasms, groaned and gasped, lifted his head from the death chamber gurney and would have arched his back if he had not been belted down. After he stopped breathing his eyes and mouth remained open." May 4, 1990. Florida. Jesse Joseph Tafero. When the state replaced a "natural" sponge with a synthetic sponge in the headpiece of the execution apparatus, six-inch flames erupted, and three jolts of power were required to stop Tafero's breathing. Support for the state's faulty sponge theory was generated by sticking a part of it into a "common household toaster" and noting that it smoldered and caught fire. Extensive investigation by the office of the Capital Collateral Investigator in Tallahassee questioned this theory as other states have used synthetic sponges with no problems Many states with the death penalty have higher murder rates than neighboring non-death penalty states. The murder rate in the U.S. is six times that of England, which does not have the death penalty, even though the rates of other crimes are largely similar. Some studies actually show a brutalization effect of the death penalty, including a slight rise in the murder rate immediately following an execution March 25, 1997. Florida. Pedro Medina. With the first jolt of electricity, blue and orange flames sparked from the mask covering Medina's face. Flames up to a foot long shot out from the right side of Medina's head for 6 - 10 seconds. The execution chamber clouded with smoke, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the witness room The Baldus study, recognized by the Supreme Court in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), looking at Georgia murder cases in the 1970's, found that the death penalty was assessed in 22% of cases involving black defendants and white victims, 8% of cases involving white defendants and white victims, 1% of cases involving black defendants and black victims, and 3% of cases involving white defendants and black victims. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that racial disparities in sentencing "are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system."[/QB]