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When it comes to the Death Penalty, I'm about as far left as you can get. No matter what the person is accused or convicted of, I don't think the government has the right to put that person to death. Recently, Romell Broom's attempted execution in Ohio was unsuccessful. I'm totally against the death penalty, but if you are going to HAVE the death penalty, you should only get one bite at the apple. That means if you aren't successful the first time, you don't get a second chance.
Granted, Romell Broom is a TERRIBLE person according to what he's been convicted of-- the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl in 1984.
The girl, Tryna Middleton, was abducted at knifepoint on Sept. 21, 1984, while she was walking home from a Friday night football game with two friends.
[snip]
On the day of the murder, Broom watched the girls from a slow-moving car. They sensed something wasn't right and turned up a different street to get home, Bessye Middleton said.
But Broom, who was familiar with the neighborhood, apparently guessed their detour and was waiting for them. He raped Tryna Middleton and stabbed her seven times, according to the attorney general's office.
Broom's preying on girls eventually caught up with him.
Three months later, Broom forced an 11-year-old girl into his car but the victim's mother thwarted his escape by running after the car, which was stuck on ice, and yelling to her daughter to jump out.
"The daughter finally jumped out, just about the same time he got some traction on the vehicle and he actually ran over her leg," said Gary Belluomini, an FBI agent who worked in a white-collar crime unit where Bessye Middleton was a clerk.
Two eyewitnesses to the attempted abduction collaborated, one getting the numbers on the getaway car's license plate and the other the letters. That led to Broom's arrest.
He was identified by the girl, her mother and by two eyewitnesses and, after police recognized the similarities with the cases, by Tryna's girlfriends.
And while he may not have given that girl the same opportunity to live, I don't think it's right to plan the execution, have the person awaiting that day (I imagine it would be like waiting for a spanking when you're a child only a million times worse, because at least you know you'll be alive when the spanking is over), only to have the State be unable to find a vein after poking and prodding every possible vein in your body.
Broom, 53, tried to assist technicians in finding a vein, lying on his side, sliding the tube up and down his forearm and flexing his fingers. At 2.49pm Broom "wiped his face with a tissue", and "appeared to be crying". Eventually, the team at the so-called "death house" gave up.
That is inhumane.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer said it best:
Last week's fiasco was the third time since 2006 that Ohio corrections officials have struggled to complete an execution by lethal injection. The problem each time has been difficulty finding a vein. The first two were eventually successful, although the 2007 execution of Christopher Newton dragged on so long he was granted a bathroom break.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection is not inherently a "cruel and unusual punishment" forbidden by the Constitution, Ohio changed its protocols to ensure that prisoners are sedated before the fatal drip begins. Broom's was to have been the third execution under these guidelines.
We in no way condone or defend what Broom did. No person with a heart or a brain could. The question is how does a civilized society respond to the ultimate uncivilized act.
Lethal injection has been sold to the public as a more humane -- and dependable -- means of capital punishment. But there was nothing humane about what happened last week. It's time to end the charade.
(emphasis is mine)
I think he deserves to burn in Hell for what he did, I just don't think WE should be the ones to send him there.
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