Government lawyers, eager to carry on and avoid any potential delays, sought to discredit the journalists’ accounts. The Constitution, the 5-4 majority opinion said, “does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death - something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people.” Some pain doesn’t necessarily mean an execution method violates prohibitions against “cruel and unusual” punishment, the Supreme Court ruled in 2019. Federal Bureau of Prisons attorney Rick Winter said in response that neither he nor anyone in a government witness room heard that. 14 after his 1992 conviction of killing seven people, said in a filing the next day that “Corey said his hands and mouth were burning” after the injection. William Breeden, a spiritual adviser in the chamber when 52-year-old Corey Johnson was executed on Jan. But audio from the death chamber to the media viewing room was switched off just prior to the injections, so journalists couldn’t hear if inmates groaned or complained of pain. None of those executed appeared to writhe in pain. Experts for the prisoners said the drug paralyzes the body, masking the pain prisoners could feel as they died. One point of contention during the litigation was whether, even if pulmonary edema did occur, inmates could feel it after they appeared to be knocked out. Manufacturers were no longer willing to supply the combination of drugs used in three federal executions from 2001 to 2003, explaining they didn’t want drugs meant to save lives to be used for killing. When Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced in 2019 it’d resume executions after a 17-year hiatus, it said it would use pentobarbital alone. “A short time after he took a deep breath and snored, it appeared to me that LeCroy was in a deep, comfortable sleep.” “During the entirety of the execution, LeCroy did not appear to be in any sort of distress, discomfort, or pain,” Williams wrote. Shortly after serving in five of the recent executions, Williams was named the interim warden of the high-profile New York City lockup where Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. But Williams made only cursory reference to “the rise and fall” of LeCroy’s abdomen in his account. It lasted about a minute, according to the AP and other reports.Įxecutioner Eric Williams stood next to LeCroy as he died. 22 execution of William LeCroy, convicted of killing Georgia nurse Joann Lee Tiesler in 2001, the 50-year-old’s stomach area heaved uncontrollably immediately after the pentobarbital injection. Biden hasn’t spoken about any specific action.ĭuring the Sept. Activists want him to go further by backing a bill abolishing the federal death penalty. The discrepancies could increase pressure on Biden to declare his administration won’t execute any of the roughly 50 federal inmates still on death row.

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