The Executioner’s Tale: Romell Broom’s Botched Lethal Injection
Wenseslao Moguel may have been one of the strangest of all. After being captured in 1915 while fighting in the Mexican revolution, Moguel was sentenced to be executed by firing squad. The order was carried out, with Wenselao being shot nine times, the last coming in the form of a close range shot to the head by the officer in charge. Amazingly, he not only survived, but his record indicates that he “escaped” from custody. Some years later he showed up in a photo talking to representatives of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
Back to the case at hand, Governor Ted Strickland ordered a one week delay while the technical problems were sorted out, but Broom’s lawyers are now claiming that the execution can no longer go forward. They seem to be making two separate pitches on this appeal, with the first being the old jailhouse lawyer myth that the state can not attempt to execute someone twice for the same crime. They also claim that the botched process would now fall under the umbrella of cruel and unusual punishment.
Both lines of argument are interesting but have already failed to sway the Supreme Court. The last time such a case was heard was in 1945 when Willie Francis failed to expire in the electric chair due to technical issues and incompetence on the part of the prison staff. In the court’s collective judgment, nothing prevented the state from giving Willie a proper sendoff approximately one year later.
I have no doubt that much of the discussion which is sure to surround Romell Broom’s case will boil down to the never-ending debate over the death penalty. It’s a painful topic for many people, but much of it boils down to characteristics of human society and their dealings with criminals which date back to the dawn of man’s efforts to rise above the beasts. This thin veneer of civilization, as Borroughs liked to call it, requires constant attention and repair, along with the consent of a significant majority.
Mr. Broom needs to keep his date with destiny next week. Homo sapiens have a violent, war-like streak buried deep down in the hind brain, and there will always be a small percentage of the herd falling at the trailing edge of the bell curve which can not overcome those instincts. Civilized societies have long held the right to act in an uncivil manner toward those who would unleash mayhem which threatens the social structure. We may not like it, but sometimes it’s the only thing separating the denizens of the city from the barbarians outside the gates.
Good EFFING Gawd. I’m going to have nightmares tonight.
Might as well throw in the witch trials for good measure.
UGH
“But something went far off the beam on this occasion. After two hours of probing, poking, and prodding, the technicians were unable to find a suitable vein where they could administer the lethal injection.”
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Btw, I think you mispelled the guy’s name in the headline of this article.
Is anyone else creeped out by the meticulousness required for lethal injection anyway? If I were Camille Paglia I could put my finger on it, but suffice it to say that it bears too much resemblance to therapeutic or diagnostic medical treatment.
I think we should bring back the firing squad. Use weapons, not some subtle, dual-purpose modern technology developed by medical professionals that functions at the molecular level. (Yes, I know it’s all ultimately molecular, but blowing a hole through one’s heart seems more mechanical than does stopping it with potassium chloride.)
Couldn’t they find his jugular vein?
This should be elementary training for a competent executioner.
Terrible shame…this would probably be an excellent retirement business for someone that wants out of Obamacare. Having spent my life putting therapeutic lines in neonates and squirming children, someone like me could make a nice living in retirement going from state to state inserting lines in some of the most horrific individuals that need to be removed from society before another “progressive” declares the cured and releases them to our streets, legal or illegal.
Femorals, jugulars, subclavians are easy on big people, peripheral veins or not. To make sure the libs are not empowered at appeal a little local anesthesia will keep them from complaining that a sharp clean injection is “cruel” on a drug addict that has self-inflicted much more pain on himself.
Come to think of it, no call, no weekends, no nights. Pricing: $10K plus expenses is not unreasonable. Texas, Florida and OK could batch them at three for $25K. Money could be saved for the State by skipping the alcohol prep thing…wouldn’t really be needed.
Let me see if 1-800-EXECUTE is available.
The Margaret Pole link says that, after beheading, the head retains conciousness for at least 8 seconds and that the purpose of holding the head up is to show the crowd and the severed body to the head.
Can anybody confirm that this is true? If so, it adds a whole level of horror to what the jihadis do to their hostages.
@2
Thanks, Dave. I don’t write or have access to the titles or the sub-headers on the front page, but I contacted an editor to tidy it up. Good catch. I didn’t notice it when I first checked it either.
What is the point of this article?
Yes, executions are sometimes botched.
Yes, there is a debate over capital punishment.
And…?
Sounds like it’s time for a do over to me. So it was botched the first time, they can get it right the next time.
“Thanks, Dave.”
You’re welcome.
Broom raped a 14 year old girl. After raping her he stabbed her 7 times with a butcher knife. Then left her to bleed out to die a slow death.
Let the parents of the 14 year old rape victim have this creep for 15 minutes and I bet his ass will be well on it’s way to hell inside of 5 minutes.
*CLUE TO LUCASVILLE: the medical device – ACCUVEIN – has a special light which locates hard to find veins for the purpose of hooking up an IV (as seen on the TV show The Doctors, 9/16/09). I have always wondered why they don’t just administer a verrry strooong dose of anesthesia with that over-the-mouth/nose cover. No needles, no veins, no pain, no problems. Now, count backward from 100…
That was Henry VIII,stupid,not Edward III
Yutzes. You can’t prettify executions all the time. Simpler is better. The Godfather II movie showed one – a gun in the mouth of the immobilized victim fired towards the back top of his head. For gaudier but just as certain, tie the dude to a chair, shove a stick of dynamite under the chair, light the fuse and run.
Sassenach, she’s scientically impaired. It’s called blood pressure.
Did he suffer more or less than his victim?
If less, justice was not done.
The villain here is the endless attempt to make execution totally painless. We have defined down cruel and unusual punishment from “don’t deliberately cause pain” to ” you can kill the guy but any minor pain caused therein is torture”. Anti death penalty advocates have done nothing to prevent suffering on death row but have spread the agony to the society at large by creating an appeal process that drags out the life of the condemned while doing nothing to spare the wrongly convicted. The current system benefits no one but lawyers and the sleaziest among them to boot.
Bring back the guillotine and public executions, criminals need to know what is in store for them and with the guillotine there is no chance of errors. Cut off the head and it is over and done, clean and simple.
DONT KILL ROMMEL BROOM!!!HE HAVE TO LIVE!IT IS SIN TO TAKE SOMEONE LIFE,TO CONDAMNE A PEOPLE TO DEATH,IT IS SIN TO CONDAMNE ROMMEL BROOM TO DEATH.I KNOW THAT HE MADE A BAD THING BUT GOD CAN FORGIVE HIM IF HE REPENT.ONLY GOD CAN TAKE HIS LIFE.DEATH PUNISHMENT DONT HAVE TO BE APPROVE BY LAW BECAUSE NOBODY AND NO INSTITUTION CAN TAKE A PEOPLE LIFE.DISSAPROVE THE DEATH PUNISHMENT!!!READ BIBLE BECAUSE IS THE WORD OF GOD AND GOD DONT APPROVE DEATH PUNISHMENT.ONLY GOD CAN TAKE OUR LIFE!DONT KILL ROMMEL BROOM!!!
And thus the guillotine was invented to solve just these sorts of problems.
They should have slit his wrist and made finding a vein easier. It not, he would bleed out,, painlessly and mercilessly.
21. Phineas:
You were quicker than me, you beat me to the post. The minute I saw the headline that was exactly what I was going to write. An verbatim too! Thank you.
“IT IS SIN TO TAKE SOMEONE LIFE”
Not where I come from it ain’t.
When Timothy McVeigh was executed in Terre Haute, Indiana, some bleeding hearts expressed outrage that there appeared to be a tear in one eye. Just picture the cruelty, America’s most prolific mass murderer had a tear in his eye.
Well after spending a number of years working with pack strings and in hunting camps, I consider myself as being good with an ax and rope. The ax is quick, a ligature would take a few more minutes. I am willing to travel and in these troubled economic times, more than willing to do group discounts. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Keep it super simple. Lethal injection is a needless complicated form of exectution. Better methods would be Britsh style long-drop hnaing, or better yet, the Chinese style bullet n the back of the head. A 1911 would work rather well.
He should have been hung. It worked for centuries and evolved into a science, maybe an art, where the hang man had to know what size rope and how far to drop a body based on weight. To short and they strangled, too long and the head could rip right off. This society has become soft on crime. Why is there so much sympathy for the people who have taken it on themselves to rape and kill? If I had my way they would be locked in a room with no food and a dull knife until they were ready to be buried. Is that cruel? Not as cruel as raping a little girl and killing her.
An inability/unwillingness to administer quick and lethal death to our most sick and violent criminals is a direct expression of the cowardice of society at large.
The West has become so full of craven groveling babies that we can’t even finish off mass murderers.
All of this serves to enable criminals who have less and less to fear.
19. God’s word says execute murderers, and in fact, that is the primary reason for the existence of government.
When George Maledon,the hangman for Judge Isaac Parker(The Hanging Judge)was asked if he ever felt anything for the condemned,he was quoted as saying,”yes,I felt for the left ear”.Behind which is the proper placement of the knot to prevent slow strangulation.That’s all the compassion this or any other murdering P.O.S.S.O.B. deserves.
honeslty i woulndlt kill after this terrible incident obviously he was not ment to be to killed, just give him a life sentence
One round of .45 ACP applied to the occipital lobe. 100% certain death. $.45. It’s all over in minutes. Oh, and maybe you want to find a patch of sandy ground for the executed to bleed out onto. This is not rocket science.
Just think, a length of hemp rope would be just, and work fine. It has nothing to do with “hind brain” but rather the forebrain. Most civilized people flush the toilet.
Hemp rope would also be a green alternative.
If at first you don’t suceed, try, try again. . .
What was wrong with the guillotine? It was quick.
Screw the guillotine or firing squad. Lower him feet first into flesh-eating acid. Very slowly.
The question that begs to be answered is: Did the use sterile needles so as not to give him an infection??
I’m with RKV…. don’t know why the hysterics over these ridiculously expensive and drawn out methods…just frigging shoot them with a large caliber, .45 or larger…single shot is all you need, good head shot. No fuss.
Gee ending the miserable existence of this miscreant doesn’t seem to be all that difficult. I’d be more then happy to place the barrel of my .45 at the base of his brain and blow his dumb ass away. Seems pretty efficient to me.
I say throw him in the ground, and start covering him with dirt – while he is alive… Broadcast it on television. While his muffled screaming fills the air, Drew Carey will be facing the camera, saying, ” … and if you rape and kill a little girl, this will happen to you, too” — smiling.
Why kill him? Ohio apparently doesn’t hire people competent enough to kill a human.
If they don’t have the good old reliable Soviet method of a pistol bullet to the base of the skull, then let him go.
But first sever his spinal cord in a few places high in the neck and then tell his effin’ Mommy to bring a hand-truck with which to wheel his dead @ss home.
He won’t be hurting anybody anymore once he’s imprisoned in his own body.
Whoever loves this animal can feed him and clean his behind for him for the next few decades…or leave him in the basement to starve to death.
Like I, or anyone else should care about what happens to a short-eyed rape-o killer.
Oregon seems to have the methods for applying death down pretty well, though they misapply them to assisted suicide; why not give them a call? and Sassenach: according to my research, yes, the head has been known to apparently retain consciousness for as long as two minutes, blinking eyes and even attempting to speak; the French figured that one out at Madame Guillotine. That’s the part about the bastard scum beheading jihadis that gives me nightmares.
Sounds like they should use something simpler, like a firing squad.
Subcontract the job to the undertaker. They have a little tool that will drain enough of his blood in less than a few seconds that will render him unconscious and dead in a minute. Best of all undertakers work cheap!
They should hire Romell Broom himself to do their executions…sounds like he knows what he is doing.
Yeah, nobozons, and maybe they could do a package deal with the burial arrangements, too. Eeeesh.
can please somebody tell me whats happened to him???
Are we any better than this man when we take a life,it makes us just the same,he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison and then he pays but killing him sets him free.And to make jokes about all this is sick,if he had family there how were they feeling?He has a right to make this right with God and if he does not then a very hard place is waiting for him.When we kill these people we become killers just like them,whats in your heart J.
Hi. I am not sure what is going on with some people here. Where do those thoughts of acid and burrying alive come from? That is about as pervert as raping and stabbing. While I can understand that family and close friends of the victim might think that way, you all please keep in mind that plenty of innocent people have been killed not only on our streets but on death row as well. Each of us could be on either side any day. Please keep it human. An eye for an eye is supposed to give the maximum of what we are allowed to do not the minimum. Do not take a life for an eye.