Executions in Iran

http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/september/iran_demos_28904.shtml

THE HATE OF THE PEOPLE REACHING EXPLOSION POINT
By Safa Haeri Published Tuesday, September 28, 2004

http://www.democracyforiran.de/flogging.jpg

Stoning of a woman in Iran
In a film of Mahnaz Tamizi

http://www.adpi.net/Edam/index.htm

http://www.adpi.net/tehranskilling.htm

Tehrans Killing Fields

By: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, Elio Bonazzi and Alireza Saghafi

FrontPageMagazine.com
January 27, 2005

(This picture, smuggled out of Iran, was taken in 1992 in the town of Arak)
Given Irans incessant foreign policy saber-rattlingincluding its continued development of nuclear weapons, support for Islamist terrorist groups, and facilitation of the terrorism in Iraqits easy to lose sight of the horrifying domestic situation within the Islamic Republic. The mullahs have not only destroyed the lives of countless foreigners through their worldwide export of Islamic terror and extremism; theyve also plunged the Iranian people into a violent, hellish abyss of torture, repression, hopelessness, drug addiction and despair.

Conservative estimates by Iranian opposition movements and various human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, put the number of women stoned to death in Iran since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in the neighborhood of fifty. One can only imagine the cases that have gone undetected -- as many Islamic "punishments" are carried out in small and remote villages.

In a particularly gruesome execution in 1992 in the town of Arak

Women sentenced to death by stoning are buried in the ground up to their necks. Iranian law regulates the size of the stones used by the executioner crowd; stones cannot be big enough to kill the sentenced woman too quickly, as the purpose of this barbaric ritual is to inflict as much pain as possible before death. On the other hand, stones cannot be too small, as each blow must be dramatically painful.

Such rules and regulations are quite ephemeral in the Islamic Republic. In a particularly gruesome execution carried out in 1993 in the city of Arak, a woman was to be stoned to death in front of her husband and two young children. After the stoning began, the woman was able to free herself from the hole in the ground, escaping death. According to Shariah laws, in such cases the woman must be let go, as her death sentence was revoked by divine intervention. Ten minutes after the failed stoning, however, the poor woman was chased down, apprehended and summarily executed anyway, by a firing squad.

While stoning captures the imagination of Westerners as the most barbaric act committed under Shariah laws, other forms of sentencing perpetrated by the Islamic Republic are just as horrific. For example, Iran employs several types of body mutilation, from the amputation of hands, arms and legs to

the macabre procedure of plucking out the eyeballs of the sentenced without the use of anesthetics. Several photos exist to document such occurrences, in dossiers kept by human rights organizations.

The international community, in particular European countries, has been quite indifferent to such atrocities. It prefers to engage the Islamic Republic in lucrative business deals, relegating the human rights issue to a mere footnote, a ritualistic and rhetorical passage usually present in high-level discussions with Iranian officials, but never taken seriously or enforced.

In recent years, as general disaffection towards Irans ruling theocratic regime has increased, the number of public executions has also increased significantly. The number of such executionsusually carried out in busy public squares during peak hours, with people sentenced to death hung from craneshas increased from 75 in the year 2000, to 139 in 2001, to 300 in 2002. Official statistics are not available for 2003 and 2004, but it is estimated that the number of such executions is now several hundred per year. Even minors and those who are physically and mentally disabled are regularly executed.

Sometimes a single mullah serves as judge, jury and executioner. Hadji Rezai is the mullah judge of the small city of Neka. When Atefeh Rajabi, a young and psychologically unstable girl, refused to be his "temporary" wife, Rezai framed her with the blessings of the high court in Tehran. Allegations of sexual misconduct were fabricated against her, so that she could be brought to justice according to the scorned Rezai, who personally hung the noose around Atefehs neck. Rezais last words to the dying young girl: This will teach you to disobey!

Several cases such as this have been documented, where dodgy legal procedures and politically motivated mock trials have been used, with pre-written death sentences for dissidents who have been falsely accused of common crimes such as rape. The steady rise of stoning, public executions and flogging is certainly an indication of the seriousness of the situation in Iran. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. A profound malaise affects the Iranian society as a whole, a symptom of which is the rising number of drug addicts, which is growing out of control, especially among the younger population.

When Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979, he sent a clear message to his fellow compatriots: In order to develop and expand the revolution, more children were needed, first of all to defend the motherland from foreign intervention, and secondly to propagate the Shiite creed in a predominantly Sunni region. Khomeini envisaged a hegemonic role for Iran in the Middle East, and a significant population increase was the first step in that direction. When the Shah was forced to leave his throne, Iran had approximately 37 million citizens. Between 3 and 4 million Iranians left the country after the revolution, and another million young Iranians died in the war against Iraq during the 1980s. The population of Iran today is approximately 70 million, which means that, at least on the surface, Iranians followed Khomeinis directive to the letter, almost doubling their number in spite of Diaspora and war casualties.

Deeper analysis, however, shows that, far from being an Islamist victory, the Iranian demographic explosion is rapidly contributing to the demise of the Islamic Revolution. Rather than being vehicles that carry the Shiite faith and Khomeinis revolutionary message, Iranian youngsters dream of a Western lifestyle and look at the U.S. as a model for democracy, freedom and ability to achieve according to ones potential. In a society where nepotism, family connections and degrading compromise with mullahs at any level are the norm, those values embodied in the American dream have a profound meaning, and are never confused with pure and simple consumerism, as some European detractors have suggested. Put in simple terms, the Islamist establishment carries no consensus among the Iranian youth, which now numerically represents the absolute majority of the population.

The Islamist regime has responded by cracking down on students on several occasions in order to defuse the most imminent threats of rebellion. It has also devised a more sinister and long-term plan for the containment of Iranian youth: a systematic and massive induction to drug addiction, which has now reached colossal proportions. Several United Nations and DEA reports have documented this crisis, indicating that drug addiction is the thorniest problem in Iran.

To give an idea of the magnitude of this matter, Afghanistan produced around 6,000 tons of opium in 2003approximately half of which has been acquired by Iran. After the Afghani government announced it would crack down on opium production, the Iranian government decided, after an open debate reported by several official press agencies such as IRNA, to start producing opium on Iranian soil to satisfy the internal (and induced) demand.

How did the situation get this out of hand? The use of drugs has traditionally been tolerated within Iranian society, particularly the consumption of hashish and opium by middle-aged and older men, the same way Western societies have been more permissive of alcohol. Today, however, drug use is no longer an old people's bad habit. The average addiction age is falling rapidly; a few years ago, the addiction age fell to the age group of 25-29. Today the age group of 10-19 is the most afflicted by drug addiction in Iran.

Sociologically, a strict correlation has been established between lack of jobs and drug consumption in all societies. As far as Iran is concerned, the situation is exacerbated by not only rampant unemployment, but also by a general apathy and lack of confidence in the future. Iranian youth doesnt see the light at the end of the emotional tunnel in which the country has subsisted since the theocracy was established almost 26 years ago. The official unemployment rate is 14 percent, but Western analysts estimate the real number to be at approximately 30 percent. Although youth unemployment easily exceeds 50 percent, this statistic disregards the reality of the other 50 percent, who are usually under-employed. The quality of Iranian education is high, comparable to Western countries. Thus, the despair of highly skilled young graduates forced to accept menial jobs in small shops is reflected more in the drug addiction rates rather than the employment statistics.

Buying heroin and opium is easier than buying bread or milk, for which Iranians have to endure long lines. Official government rhetoric blames the nefarious influence of Western culture and the Internet for the increase in drug consumption. In reality, the government does nothing to fight the problem. On the contrary, in the best case it turns a blind eye to the illicit drug traffic that brings even more money to the pockets of the powerful mullahs in charge. And in the worst case it favors the increase of drug addiction, even revoking the subsidies given to people for detoxification. Thirty pills of Naltroxone, a substance commonly used in Iran during the first days of the rehabilitation program, cost a little more than 20,000 tomans (25 U.S. dollars). Previously, that cost was covered by governmental subsidies; but ever since Parliament canceled the program, detoxification has become too expensive for Irans unemployed young people.

Promoting opium as a way to control potentially hostile masses has been done successfully in the past. A classic example is the British policyadopted during the 19th centuryof buying the ashes of opium from Chinese and Indian subjects in order to drive them into addiction and curb their rebellious instincts. Great Britain even went to war against China twice (the so called Opium Wars of 1839 and 1856) to force the Qing Emperor to legalize the import of opium.

Unfortunately, a dangerous side effect of massive drug consumption is now developing in Iran: the rise in HIV/AIDS transmitted through the sharing of needles for intravenous drug use. Such practice is in widespread use among inmates, who have extremely limited access to clean and unused needles. So the vicious spiral begins with early drug addiction, which is likely to drive the young addict to commit small crimes to finance the habit; sooner or later that person is caught and sent to jail, where the likelihood of contracting HIV is extremely high.

Official statistics, which tend to underestimate the problem for political convenience, state that 65 percent of all recorded HIV/AIDS cases in Iran are due to the sharing of needles. Unconfirmed reports put the percentage of HIV positive long-term inmates between 30 and 40 percent of the overall inmate population.

While the extremely dangerous situation, as far as drug addiction is concerned, is well known by UN officials, their recipe to regain control of the problem is doomed to failure, simply because there is no such thing as a government in Iran. The best parallel one can use to describe the Iranian power structure is the Mafia. The Genovese, Gambino, Bonano, Colombo and Lucchese type families have their equivalent in the ayatollahs Rafsanjani, Jannati, and Khamenei, Messbaheh-Yazdi, Vaaezeh-Tabasi and man, many more, each one with a private militia at their disposal. Just like the Mafia families divvied territory and areas of influence, the Ayatollahs divvy interests and monopolize particular businesses. For example, Rafsanjani started his personal fortune by supervising all oil deals, while Tabassi looks after the major charity organization, the Shrine of Imam Reza, which is a huge source of liquid cash. Rafsanjani later diversified his business, and was the mullah who most profited when ex-President Clinton allowed the import of pistachios and carpets from Iran.

The network of connections and shady business deals has grown so intricate that drawing a power map based on links between ayatollahs, businesses and militias today is an impossible task. What is certain, however, is that a constant struggle exists among the top ayatollahs to extend their influence. An indication of such struggle is the chronic delay that affects the construction of Tehrans second airport. It took almost three decades to complete just the first phase, and the end of the project is still uncertain. The ayatollah who succeeds in controlling the airport will be the most powerful man in Iran, as the airport is likely to become the major hub for all illicit and clandestine operations, from drugs to prostitution, from weapon smuggling to young women and childrens sex slave dealings.

Much like Mafia wars, the mullahs power struggles often assume violent tones, such as when members of the various militias kill each other or when cars are blown up, often in daylight and in busy streets of Tehran, as a warning to opposing gangs. The difference between the Mafia and the Iranian power structure is that the Mafia was always a parallel and clandestine subsystem, so it never stood a chance of replacing the U.S. government. In Iran, on the other hand, the Mafia is the government. Structures like the Parliament and the judiciary are empty shells deprived of all power. Instead, power firmly resides in the hands of a few ayatollahs, and is exercised without any democratic control through private militias and squads of thugs, often recruited among ex-Taliban refugees, Al-Qaida members escaped from Afghanistan, Palestinians and other Arab Islamists who found a safe haven for terrorists in Iran.

The extent of Iranian corruption is difficult to comprehend in the Western world. It is something so endemic and so entrenched in all societal strata that it can be described as an uninterruptible chain which starts with the President, continues through the functionaries and public servants at all levels and ends with the police officers who patrol the streets. On December 26, 2004, One year after the terrible earthquake that killed 70,000 people in the Iranian city of Bam, survivors are still sleeping in poor quality tents, exposed to the inclement weather. Top quality tents sent by Germany, which could alleviate the poor living conditions of the survivors, have been sold by the mullahs on the black market, together with other items such as water pumps, water filters and generators, sent by the international community in great quantity in the weeks that followed the earthquake.

Iran as a nation is today sending the world a message of self-destruction and annihilation. Death is constantly brought about by stoning, public executions, floggings, and massive drug addiction and diseases such as HIV. Death is also promoted through the political and financial support offered by the Islamist regime to the suicide bombers of Hamas and Hizbollah. The construction of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, the atomic bomb, is actively pursued by the Islamic Republic, which wouldnt hesitate to use it to annihilate Israel. The West has hesitated far too long to face the situation in Iran; inertia and appeasement have contributed not only to the constant deterioration of the living conditions of Iranians, but also to the weakening of security of not only neighboring countries, but also the West, which is the ultimate target of the mullahs Islamist fury.

Now is the time to inject a culture of life into Iran, and to counteract the nihilism of the Islamists with a message of optimism and hope for a better future. The only way to achieve that is by creating the conditions for a regime change promoted by Iranians inside and outside Iran who put party politicking and festering ideological grudges aside. This will clear the way for an internationally monitored referendum to choose a secular and democratic supplant for the mullahs primitive, vicious and sadistic regime.

DIGITIZING TERROR High-Res Executions http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/1,1518,432122,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/1,1518,432122,00.html

August 17, 2006

By Susanne Koelbl

Terrorists are becoming increasingly adept at producing high-quality videos. DVDs depicting bloody beheadings are now available at markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They're also on the Web.

AFP
Terrorists are fond of filming executions, like this one of a Russian diplomat in Iraq.

The man is 38-years-old and has only one leg -- war is his life. His name is Mullah Dadullah and he is considered the Taliban's second-in-command in Afghanistan. And he is a brutally savage man.

His victims lie on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs. The self-appointed holy warrior grabs one of the men by the hair and slits the "traitor's" throat. He does the same with the next. And the next. A total of six times. The butchered men are accused of having collaborated with the "infidels." Death is their punishment.
This is no execution. It is bloody slaughter. And the carnage is available for the world to watch. The act was recorded with a digital camera the resulting DVD is sold at markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is also available on the Internet. The purpose? To strike terror into the hearts of Western "crusaders" and those of their collaborators.

It's a phenomenon Markus Kaiser, a senior official with Germany's domestic intelligence agency, is well aware of. For the past seven years, he has combed the Internet for Islamist battle rhetoric and terrorist documents. Kaiser suggests that it's likely not a coincidence that the video showing butcher Mullah Dadullah was released now, almost concurrently with the deployment of new NATO force in southern Afghanistan. Kaiser has noticed that the level of brutality in these propaganda films is on the rise. "I have never before seen such a disgusting slaughter," he says.

That the Internet has become a communication platform for terrorists -- as well as for their supporters and their adversaries -- is nothing new. These days, though, a close monitoring of the Web reveals the increasing brutality of the international jihadist movement. The radicals' isolation and desperation is also on full display. The images, though, also document the vulnerability of Western armies in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the challenges they face in dealing with the realities of the countries in which they operate.

Terrorism experts routinely monitor about 20 Web sites which are used to circulate videos and other propaganda material. Then there are a number of password-protected forums and blogs. But despite the constant surveillance, comparably little is known about the people behind these sites.

One of the sites even announces its terror videos as if they were entertainment. Global Islamic Media Front presents "Mujaheddin's Hidden Camera -- Blood Comedy." In that video, the Russian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq on June 3 beg for their lives. But their appeals are in vain. Thirty seconds later, the men are brutally beheaded. The film goes on to show US soldiers collapsing in Iraq after being mortally wounded by snipers, Navy Seals being massacred in Kunar in eastern Afghanistan and military vehicles being blown up. The credits read: "In the name of the merciful, oh Allah, let the shots hit their mark and strengthen our steps."
On their long marches through the forbidding landscape of the Hindukush, the Taliban wear old sandals and simple, traditional clothing, and carry nothing but light handguns. Their roadside bombs are handmade and they live in primitive mud huts. And yet, when it comes to technology, the Taliban are completely up-to-date. Their short films can be downloaded in various formats from Web sites, even onto mobile phones. And the chronicle of horror is constantly updated, with new material added daily from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, Chechnya and Indonesia.

Intelligence services believe that the Pakistani city of Quetta is home to what is probably the most professional media workshop of terror. The city, in the state of Beluchistan in the Pashtun border region, is considered a Taliban stronghold. And it plays host to al-Qaida's propaganda headquarters, the "Foundation for Islamic Media Production," or "Al-Sahab."

The most important statements issued by godfather of terror Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida's Iraq division until he was killed in June, were edited and processed here. What began as an amateur operation producing poor-quality videos has since turned into a highly professional outfit.
The organization released its most polished video to date more than five weeks ago, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the London bus and subway bombings on July 7, 2005, in which 52 people were killed and almost 800 injured. Using the format of a professional news report, the tape depicts the chaos of the rescue effort and crisis meetings, interrupted by messages from Zawahiri and a previously unknown clip featuring suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer.

The quality of terrorist videos are rapidly improving.When analyzing the film, experts paid particular attention to a man whose face had never been shown before: Azzam the American. The 28-year-old is considered an important figure in al-Qaida's broadcasts.

Azzam's real name is Adam Gadahn and he's a native of California. The son of a goat breeder, Gadahn converted to Islam and went to Pakistan in 1998 where he married an Afghan refugee. Appearing on a video aired on ABC News last September, he issued the following threat to his fellow Americans: "Yesterday London and Madrid, tomorrow Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing!" He wore the Taliban's trademark black turban and his face was covered. Gadahn is wanted by the FBI.

Just how to handle Islamist propaganda videos is an issue the media has yet to reach consensus on. The discussion -- sparked by the broadcasting of excerpts showing the April 2004 execution in Iraq of businessman Nicholas E. Berg -- is ongoing. CNN now refuses to broadcast the demands of kidnappers in hostage-taking situations. The head of the news department at CNN's competitor, Al-Arabiya, on the other hand, has said he prefers to decide on a case-by-case basis what is news and what is propaganda.

This has left the Internet as the most reliable medium for Islamist radicals. Intelligence official Markus Kaiser, whose job it is to watch the terrorists' gruesome videos from beginning to end, says that the increasingly high quality of the extremist media professionals' work is already making an impact. More improvements, he thinks, could be on the way. "It won't be long," he says, "before one of those turbaned men from the Hindukush will be speaking to us in German."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Botched Executions

http://www.ccadp.org/botchedx.htm

Below - The Botched Electrocution of Tiny Davis that forced Florida to switch to lethal injection Post-Furman Botched Executions ( Since Capital Punishment was re-instated )

1. April 22, 1983. Alabama. John Evans. After the first jolt of electricity, sparks and flames erupted from the electrode attached to his leg. The electrode then burst from the strap holding it in place and caught on fire. Smoke and sparks came out from under the hood. Two physicians entered the chamber and found a heartbeat. The electrode was reattached to his leg. More smoke and burning flesh. Again doctors found a heartbeat. Ignoring the pleas of Evan's lawyer, Russ Canan (202-292-7676), a third jolt was applied. The execution took 14 minutes and left Evan's body charred and smoldering. Canan describes the experience in M. L. Radelet (Ed.), Facing the Death Penalty: Essays on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment (1989). (See also Glass v. Louisiana, 471 U.S. 1080 (1985)).
2. Sept. 2, 1983. Mississippi. Jimmy Lee Gray. Officials had to clear the room eight minutes after the gas was released when Gray's desperate gasps for air repulsed witnesses. His attorney, Dennis Balske of Montgomery, Alabama, criticized state officials for clearing the room when the inmate was still alive. Says David Bruck, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans (eleven, according to the Associated Press)" (Bruck, New Republic, Dec. 12, 1983 at 24-25).
3. December 12, 1984. Georgia. Alpha Otis Stephens. After the first jolt of electricity failed to kill him , Stephens struggled for eight minutes before a second charge finished the job. The first jolt took two minutes, and there was a six minute pause so his body could cool before physicians could examine him (and declare that another jolt was needed.) During that six-minute interval, Stephens took 23 breaths.
4. March 13, 1985. Texas. Stephen Peter Morin. Had to probe both arms and legs with needles for 45 minutes before they found the vein.
5. October 16, 1985. Indiana. William E. Vandiver. He was still breathing after the first administration of 2,300 volts, and the current had to be applied three more times before he died. Vandiver's attorney, Herbert Shaps, witnessed the killing and said it was outrageous. The Department of Corrections admitted the execution "did not go according to plan." The physician who pronounced death said, "This is very rare."
6. August 20, 1986. Texas. Randy Woolls. A drug addict, Woolls had to help the executioner technicians find a good vein for the execution.
7. June 24, 1987. Texas. Elliott Johnson. It took 35 minutes to insert a catheter into his vein.
8. December 13, 1988. Texas. Raymond Landry. Pronounced dead 40 minutes after being strapped to the execution gurney and 24 minutes after the drugs first started flowing into his arms. Two minutes into the killing, the syringe came out of Landry's vein, spraying the deadly chemicals across the room toward the witnesses. The execution team had to reinsert the catheter into the vein. The curtain was drawn for 14 minutes so witnesses could not see the intermission.
9. May 24, 1989. Texas. Stephen McCoy. Had such a violent physical reaction to the drugs (heaving chest, gasping, choking, etc.) that one of the witnesses (male) fainted, crashing into and knocking over another witness. Houston attorney Karen Zellars, who represented McCoy and witnessed the execution, thought that the fainting would catalyze a chain reaction. The Texas Attorney General admitted the inmate "seemed to have a somewhat stronger reaction," adding "The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose or more rapidly."
10. July 14, 1989. Alabama. Horace F. Dunkins. It took two jolts (nine minutes apart) to kill this mentally retarded inmate. The foul-up was caused by "human error:" faulty cable hookups. As a result, there was not enough current to cause death. His attorney was Steve Ellis of Philadelphia. Death was pronounced 19 minutes after the first jolt.
11. 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.
12. October 17, 1990. Virginia. Wilbert Lee Evens. During the electrocution, blood spewed from the right side of the mask on Evens' face, drenching Evens' shirt with blood. Evens' continued to moan after the first jolt of electricity was applied. The autopsy concluded that the blood resulted from high blood pressure brought on by the electrocution.
13. August 22, 1991. Virginia. Derick Lynn Peterson. After a physician determined that the first cycle of electricity had failed to kill Peterson, a second cycle was required. It was the second time this electrical equipment had been used since Virginia's electric chair had been moved to Greenville from the state's old death house in Richmond. In the aftermath of the execution, prison officials announced that in the future they would routinely administer two cycles before checking for a heart beat.
14. January 24, 1992. Arkansas. Rickey Ray Rector. It took medical staff more than 50 minutes to find a suitable vein in Rector's arm. Witnesses were not permitted to view this scene, but reported hearing Rector's loud moans throughout the process. During the ordeal, Rector (who suffered serious brain damage from a lobotomy) tried to help the medical personal find a vein. The administrator of the State's Department of Corrections medical programs said (paraphrased by a newspaper reporter) "the moans did come as a team of two medical people that had grown to five worked on both sides of his body to find a vein." The administrator said "that may have contributed to his occasional outburst."
15. March 10, 1992. Oklahoma. Robyn Lee Parks. Parks had a violent reaction to the drugs used in the lethal injection. Two minutes after the drugs were administered, the muscles in his jaw, neck, and abdomen began to react spasmodically for approximately 45 seconds. Parks continued to gasp and violently gag. Death came eleven minutes after the drugs were administered. Said Tulsa World reporter Wayne Greene, "the death looked scary and ugly."
16. April 23, 1992. Texas. Billy Wayne White. It took 47 minutes for authorities to find a suitable vein, and White eventually had to help them.
17. 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."
18. May 10, 1994. Illinois. John Wayne Gacy. After the execution began, one of the three lethal drugs clogged the tube leading to Gacy's arm, and therefore stopped flowing. Blinds, covering the window through which witnesses observe the execution, were then drawn. The clogged tube was replaced with a new one, the blinds were opened, and the execution process resumed. Anesthesiologists blamed the problem on the inexperience of the prison officials who were conducting the execution, saying that proper procedures taught in "IV 101" would have prevented the error.
19. May 3, 1995. Missouri. Emmitt Foster. Foster was not pronounced dead until 30 minutes after the executioners began the flow of the death chemicals into his arms. Seven minutes after the chemicals began to flow, the blinds were closed to prohibit the witnesses from viewing the scene; they were not reopened until three minutes after death was pronounced. According to the coroner, who pronounced death, the problem was caused by the tightness of the leather straps that bound Foster to the gurney; it was so tight that the flow of chemicals into his veins was restricted. It was several minutes after a prison worker finally loosened the strap that death was pronounced. The coroner entered the death chamber twenty minutes after the execution began, noticed the problem, and told the officials to loosen the strap so that the execution could proceed.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. May 8, 1997. Oklahoma. Scott Carpenter. Two minutes after the lethal chemicals began flowing into the body of Scott Carpenter at 12:11 a.m., he began to make noises, his stomach and chest began pulsing, and his jaw clenched. In total, his body mad 18 violent convulsions, followed by 8 milder ones. His face, which first turned a yellowish gray, had turned a deep purple and gray by 12:20 a.m. He was officially pronounced dead at 12:22 a.m.
23. June 13, 1997. South Carolina. Michael Elkins. Elkins's execution was delayed for 40 minutes while numerous attempts were made to insert the IV needles in a suitable vein for the lethal injection. Because of Elkins' poor physical condition, the first needle was ultimately inserted in Elkins's neck (attempts to use his arms, legs, feet were not successful) and the second needle was not used.
24. 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.
FL Supreme Court : http://www.flcourts.org/courts/supct/deathwarrants/index.html
25. 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.