Washington, December 11: A US man whose Ohio execution was halted after prison authorities spent two hours searching unsuccessfully for a vein has received a new injunction delaying his execution by lethal injection.
An Ohio judge granted a 30-day delay in the execution of Romell Broom, 53, who was sentenced to death some 25 years ago.
Lawyers appealed for the injunction in the wake of the failed September 15 attempt to execute Broom.
The decision to halt the execution made Broom, convicted in 1984 of murdering a 14-year-old, the first condemned man to leave his execution alive since 1946.
Judge Gregory Frost ruled on Wednesday that “the state of Ohio, and any person acting in its behalf, is hereby stayed from implementing an order for the execution of Romell Broom” for 30 days.
Frost will now consider whether a second attempt to execute Broom would violate his constitutional rights.
“There is a process by which you can test just the legal issues, not the factual issue. It’s just the legal question that would be addressed,” said Adele Shank, a lawyer for Broom.
“If the judge rules in our favour, then there would be an additional hearing on the actual merits for the case,” Ms Shank said.
Broom was present at the hearing, but did not give testimony.
In 1946, the US Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana could go ahead with a second execution for a prisoner, after an attempt to execute him by electric chair failed.
Shank said the “real damage” inflicted by the failed execution attempt “was the psychological impact of what happened to him.”
“It’s a terrorising thing to have human beings surrounding you trying to take steps to execute you and … having it go long and go long and keep happening over and over again,” she said.
Broom’s failed execution prompted Ohio to suspend its use of the standard three-cocktail lethal injection used in most US states that practice the death penalty.
The protocol was replaced with a single-chemical process, using a large dose of anaesthetic.
It was used for the first time this week on Kenneth Biros, 51, who was sentenced to death for killing and dismembering a 22-year-old woman in 1991.
—Agencies