Officials in Arizona injected a death row inmate last month with doses 15 times higher than the amount of drugs called for in the state's protocol for executions by lethal injection, authorities said on Friday, according to The Associated Press.
Lawyers for convicted double murderer Joseph Wood, 55, say he gasped and struggled for breath for more than 90 minutes as he was put to death on July 23 at a state prison complex, the AP reported. Wood was found guilty in 1991 of fatally shooting his former girlfriend and her father two years earlier at a Tucson automobile body shop.
In a statement on Friday announcing that a review ordered by Arizona's governor into last month's drawn-out execution had begun, the state's Department of Corrections said Wood was given a total of 750 mg each of the drugs Midazolam, a sedative, and Hydromorphone, a painkiller, according to the AP.
Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Zick said the state's execution protocol was to administer a dose of 50 mg of each drug, the AP reported.
The inmate's lawyers had demanded an independent probe. Zick told Reuters the Department of Corrections had gathered the initial data and was seeking to have the state pay for an outside review of the matter, according to the AP.
"I am committed to a thorough, transparent and comprehensive review process," the department's director, Charles Ryan, said in a statement, the AP reported. "This will be an authoritative review ... regarding every aspect of this procedure, including the length of time it took for the execution to be lawfully completed."
The complications in putting Wood to death, which came after two other lethal injections went awry earlier this year in Ohio and Oklahoma, intensified debate over the death penalty and prompted Arizona to suspend further executions pending the review, according to the AP.
An Arizona Republic reporter who witnessed the execution said that Wood gasped more than 600 times before falling silent, the AP reported. Dale Baich, an attorney for Wood, said the records released on Friday showed the Department of Corrections greatly exceeded the drug dosage set in the protocol.
"Instead of the one dose as required under the protocol, (they) injected 15 separate doses of the drug combination, resulting in the most prolonged execution in recent memory," Baich said in a statement, according to the AP. "This is why an independent investigation by a non-governmental authority is necessary."
State corrections officials dispute any suggestion the procedure was botched, saying Wood was fully sedated and never felt any pain, the AP reported. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, called for the internal review but said justice was done.
