More on Florida's Botched Execution

Last night we posted the initial AP report about a botched lethal injection execution in Florida.  More coverage is available today. The St. Petersburg Times has "Second dose is needed to kill  inmate."

"Obviously there was something very wrong here," said Neal Dupree, supervisor of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel office for South Florida, which represented Diaz in his appeals.

Dupree, who sat in the front row while Diaz was executed, said the procedure appeared botched, particularly when Diaz squinted his eyes and tightened his jaw as if in pain. Twenty-six minutes into the procedure, Diaz's body suddenly jolted.

"It looked like Mr. Diaz was in a lot of pain," Dupree said. "He was gasping for air for 11 minutes. This is a big deal. This is a problem."

Corrections officials acknowledged that 34 minutes was an unusually long time but said no records are kept that would tell if it's the longest in state history. They said they were not sure how many times a second dose has been needed.

Gretl Plessinger, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said it's unknown at what times the first and second doses were given because those records are not kept.

The execution team called for the second dose after noticing on heart monitors that Diaz was not dying, she said.

The Miami Herald has, "Lethal injection takes 34 minutes to kill inmate."

What happened to him next looked agonizing. Grimacing, Diaz took 34 minutes to die from the drugs pumped through him. At times he seemed to be squinting and at other times he appeared to be flexing his jaw.

A Florida prisons spokeswoman, Gretl Plessinger, said the length of time it took Diaz to die was not a surprise, and that Diaz did not suffer any pain. She said prison officials had to give Diaz a second dose of the lethal chemicals because he had liver disease, which slowed his metabolism. She said it was not the first execution in which a second round of drugs had to be administered.

Maria Otero, a niece of Diaz's who was outside the prison with other family members, asked why it took a second dose of chemicals to execute her uncle.

''We deserve to know the facts,'' she said.

Diaz's death is likely to reignite the debate over the manner of executions in a case that already showed troubles with the death penalty.

Having witnessed executions, I must say that the prison spokeswoman's statement simply does not ring true.  An updated AP report, via the Jacksonville Times Union, is here.

In most Florida executions, the prisoner loses consciousness almost immediately and stops moving within three-to-five minutes. Two doctors watching a heart monitor then wait for it to show a flat line. They then inspect the body and pronounce death. The whole process happens within 15 minutes.

Diaz appeared to move for 24 minutes after the first injection. His eyes were open, his mouth opened and closed and his chest rose and fell. He was pronounced dead 10 minutes after his last movement.

Plessinger said Thursday that prison officials told her a second dose had been used before on an inmate, but they did not know when. The state has never announced publicly that the extra chemicals were needed. Until a revised protocol came out in August, prison officials did not keep records on events in lethal injections.

Expect more commentary on this in the coming days.