Lethal Injection to Get Supreme Test

In Missouri, Alan Doerhoff, a doctor who administered the state's lethal injections for more than a decade, admitted on the witness stand to being dyslexic and prone to mistakes.

During testimony, Doerhoff said that executions were attended by people with no medical background and that execution day was the first time that many of them had picked up a needle. He also said that the execution chamber was kept so dark to obscure witness views that executioners used flashlights to find their way around.

Missouri stuck by Doerhoff until a report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed that he was the target of nearly two dozen medical malpractice suits. He was relieved of his post in April, said Brian Hauswirth, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

"We still feel that [Doerhoff] did a professional job with the Department of Corrections," Hauswirth said. He said the department's director had no knowledge of Doerhoff's dyslexia until it was revealed in court. "The director decided we would not be using him for future executions."

Florida was the scene of what death penalty opponents call a terrible lethal injection in December. The execution of convicted killer Angel Diaz took twice the normal time, according to court documents citing the accounts of prison officials and witnesses.

The executioner noted in prison records that pushing the syringes that contained the anesthetic was "more difficult." The executioner used a backup line to deliver the painful pancuronium bromide without doing the same with the anesthetic.

Witnesses to the execution said Diaz showed facial movements that he should not have had if he were properly anesthetized. Minutes later, witnesses said, "he was gasping." Twenty minutes into the process, a witness said, "His mouth was wide open, his head was back . . . he almost appeared to be a fish out of water."

An autopsy of Diaz noted scorchlike marks that ran nearly the length of his left arm where the potassium chloride was delivered. Lawyers called them an indication of an agonizing death. Florida has not carried out any executions since Diaz's.

Witnesses to executions in Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Ohio have reported seeing similar grimacing and squirming by condemned men who were supposed to be out cold. Witnesses said they heard moans and watched as the prisoners' bodies seized, arched upward and convulsed before coming to rest.

Dershwitz said the witnesses were not seeing pain but rather an involuntary contraction caused by the potassium chloride, which stimulates muscle tissue as it cuts off the body's electrical impulses that generate the heartbeat. "That is a predicted effect of potassium chloride," he said.

As he watched Clark's execution in Ohio last year, Michael Manning became upset.

Manning is the brother of David Manning, whom Clark shot to death during a 1984 robbery in Toledo. He later joined Clark's relatives in denouncing how the state carried out the execution, saying, "Nobody should have to die a horrible death."

In the execution room, Clark's vein collapsed, as often happens with former drug addicts. As prison officials poked and fished for a vein, an execution that should have taken no more than 12 minutes lasted more than an hour.

After Clark's death, Ohio refined its lethal injection process, following a trend in other states where protocols were legally challenged after problem executions. Executioners in Ohio now check for a good vein as soon as a prisoner enters the death house in Lucasville, said Andrea Carson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Officials were also directed to not speed up executions to finish the process quickly for family members and others who watch condemned men die.

In spite of the changes, Carson said, "We maintain that our process worked the way it was supposed to."