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 Attorneys for the 55-year-old double murderer, who they said
gasped and struggled for breath for more than 90 minutes during
Wednesday's execution, demanded an independent probe into a
procedure they said was cloaked in secrecy and then horribly
bungled.
Arizona's governor has promised an internal review, but said justice
had been done with the execution of Joseph Wood. State corrections
officials pushed back against any suggestion the procedure was
botched, saying Wood was fully sedated and never felt any pain.
"The IV team, which includes a licensed medical doctor, verified
multiple times during the procedure that the inmate was comatose and
never in pain," Charles Ryan, director of Arizona's Department of
Corrections, said in a statement.
The complications in putting Wood to death, which came after two
other lethal injections went awry earlier this year in Ohio and
Oklahoma, renewed debate over the U.S. death penalty and prompted
the state to suspend further executions pending an internal review.
 An Arizona Republic reporter who witnessed the execution said Wood,
who was the fifth person put to death in Arizona in the past two
years, gasped 660 times before falling silent.
Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Zick told Reuters that Wood was
given at least two full doses of the lethal injection cocktail
during the procedure at a prison southeast of Phoenix.
During an emergency hearing conducted mid-execution at the request
of defense lawyers, Zick told a judge that the condemned man was
unconscious and having an "involuntary" reaction, according to a
transcript provided by defense attorneys.
"That involuntary reaction continues, but I am told that Mr. Wood is
effectively brain dead and that this is the type of reaction that
one gets if they were taken off life support," Zick said, according
to the transcript. "The brain stem is working but there's no brain
activity."
Wood was found guilty in 1991 of fatally shooting his former
girlfriend Debbie Dietz, 29, and her father, Gene Dietz, 55, two
years earlier at a Tucson automobile body shop.
'IMPORTANT TO GET ANSWERS'
Defense lawyers, in demanding an outside review into what they say
was "the most prolonged bungled execution in recent history," want
to determine in part which drugs were used and in what amounts.
"It is important for the people of Arizona to get answers, and only
an independent investigation can provide the transparency needed
following an execution cloaked in secrecy that went wrong,” defense
attorney Dale Baich said.
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He said later he had no information about the second dose of drugs
given to his client: "It appears from what the AG said that at least
a second dose was administered. We expect this information to come
out during an independent investigation.”
A spokesman for Brewer said the governor was confident that an
internal probe, which was expected to take several weeks, would be
adequate. States that impose the death penalty have scrambled to
find new suppliers of chemical combinations for lethal injections
after European drug makers objected to having their products used
for that purpose.
In Ohio, a death row inmate took 25 minutes to die and reportedly
convulsed and gasped for breath in January after he was injected
with a deadly sedative-painkiller mix of midazolam and
hydromorphone, the first such combination used for a lethal
injection in the United States.
In Oklahoma in April, another convicted killer writhed in pain as a
needle became dislodged during his execution. The process was
halted, but the man died of a heart attack.
Arizona had said it would use the same combination of drugs that
were used in Ohio but at higher doses.
The Arizona Republic urged Brewer to put a moratorium on further
executions, saying a firing squad would be more humane than allowing
a condemned inmate to gasp for breath for two hours.
(Additional reporting by Scott Malone, Steve Gorman and Dan
Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Bill
Trott, Eric Beech and Peter Cooney)
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