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When executions go bad: the Delaware edition

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

An interesting story out of Delaware on that state’s lethal injection litigation. Attorneys challenging that state’s protocol are claiming that Delaware’s last execution was, in fact, botched. Federal public defender Michael Wiseman argued that examining past practices can help determine whether Delaware is violating the constitutional rights of condemned inmates, even if the protocol itself is constitutional. Wiseman argued that Delaware officials have repeatedly failed to follow the state’s execution protocols.. . . [more] In court papers, Wiseman claims that Brian Steckel - who in 1994 strangled Sandra Lee Long of Wilmington into unconsciousness before raping and sodomizing her and setting a fire in which she burned to death - was executed in 2005 without proper anesthesia...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).