You could see spasm go through his body. But when secrets emerge about government executions youve got people carrying cash in the night across state lines. They want to create the aura that everything is smooth. The question is asked, does it matter how we put people to death . These are evildoers. These are animals. We want justice. Who cares if he feels pain . You are not allowed to experiment on people in killing them. We demonstrated again and again and again. We make these godlike decisions without godlike skills. Theres a body in the water. He was butchered and murdered. Many people proclaim their innocence. In this case, there are a number of things that stink. This man is remorseless. He needs to pay for it with his life. The electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. Get a conviction at all costs. Let the truth fall where it may. From the beginning of recorded history, civilization has sought justice through the ultimate punishment death. And as societies have evolved, so, too, have their methods of execution. In ancient rome, prisoners were fed to the lions in front of large amphitheaters of people. In greece, the condemned were sealed inside a bronze bulb, which when set on fire would pour smoke from the nostrils while the person inside roasted to death. In england, prisoners were drawn and quartered with horses pulling people apart, limb by limb. France famously used the guillotine, responding to the chant off with their heads. For a long time, the method of choice in america was hanging. In the united states, the first recorded execution was in 1608 in jamestown, virginia. Over the years, hangings became great social event, great source of entertainment. People brought picnics. Teachers would bring the students. Parents would bring the kids. There was a choir, a band. Executions were public because they were considered a ritual whose goal was to deter the populace. But our history of executions also included a dark side. Botched executions that quickly turned horrifying for the masses. It turns out its difficult to proper hang someone. If the drop is too long, the persons head would fall off. So somebody invented a machine where the rope would go up to a pulley and boulder was dropped, they called it jerk to jesus or launch to eternity. There was a man named eddie ives. Eddie weighed only 80 pounds. So the weight drops and he goes kazoom and whirled around the horizontal beam and came crashing down to the ground. They had to hang him twice. There was a lot of concern about botched hangings. Thats why the electric chair was brought in. By the late 1800s, electricity was transforming america. In order to demonstrate the incredible power of this new phenomenon, Thomas Edison filmed the execution of an elephant. Executioners quickly seized on this modern method of putting the condemned to death. One of our First Electric appliances was the electric chair. But the electric chair has its own problems. Jesse tafarrow was executed in 1990 in the electric chair in florida. A lot of reasonable people believe that he was innocent. There were 8inch flames that erupted from the skull cap during the execution, sew basically burned to death. In 1997, pedro medina was executed. Flame erupted all across the top of his head, from one ear to the other. The warden of Florida State prison was quoted as saying, the flames, smoke, putrid odor and death by inferno plagues me still. In 1977, lethal injection was invented in oklahoma as a more humane way to execute prisoners. Historically, executions were very ugly. Hangings, electrocution. And so, one of the goals of the state now is that it looks calm and peaceful. To a great degree, the lethal injection regime has much more to do with the witnesses than it has to do with the condemned. The witnesses werent seeing the condemn writhe or cough or choke or snort. The challenge with lethal injection was finding executioners with the medical skills to do the job. Today in the united states, it violates ethical codes for physicians to be involved. So usually the people who are involved in the executions are not physicians. And theyre not properly trained to do an iv insertion, much less an execution. Over the years, the issue of medical training led to numerous mistakes, but a watershed moment came in 2009 with the case of ramel broom in ohio. Just 17 steps from the room where hed be put to death, ramel broom, convicted of raping and murdering a 14yearold girl 25 years ago was helping his executioners. He laid on his side, flexed his muscles to help them find a vain to inject lethal chemicals. He never made it out of the preparation chamber. There were 20 different needle insertions into mr. Broom, in all parts of his body, in the back of his hand, in his arm, in his ankle. He was actually trying to help them find the vein. After two hours, the director of rehabilitation and correction made an unprecedented request. He asked the governor to grant a temporary reprieve. Ramel broom became the only man in u. S. History to walk away from a lethal injection alive. Ramel broom is still on death row, but he does not have an execution date. And his attorneys are arguing that you cant try and kill someone twice. But corrections officials in ohio were undeterred. They devised a new way to kill ramel broom called plan b. Most executions use one drug to put the inmate to sleep, a second drug to paralyze the inmate and finally a third drug to stop the heart. Plan b proposed using a drug called midazolam. Injected into the muscles to put the prisoner to sleep. And this invention would open a proverbial pandoras box of botched executions, starting with ohio inmate Dennis Mcguire. He was a human guinea pig for the state of ohio to experiment on. And it did, in a horrific way. vo in every trip, theres room for more than just the business you came for. Lets make the most of what weve been given whether thats getting a taste of where you are. Lets get to living. Or bringing some of that flavor back home. Thats room for possibility. Lets get to living i feel most times were high and low high and low enhance your moments. San pellegrino. Tastefully italian. Add a twist of flavor. San pellegrino essenza. paul do you get confused byi dont blame you. Claims . The most reliable. The most awarded. The best, the fastest, the best and the fastest. Its too much. Sprints doing things differently. Theyre offering a 100 total satisfaction guarantee. I mean i think Sprints Network and savings are great. But dont just take my word for it. Try out the network and see the savings for yourself. Switch and get both an unlimited plan and the Samsung Galaxy s10 plus included, for just 35 a month. For people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay. Com. They can save you these. In fact, if you had a dollar for every time they said it, youd have a lot of dollars. Which makes it hard to believe, especially coming from a talking lizard. Pip, pip, cheerio look, all i, dennis quaid, know is that esurance is built to save you dollars without skimping on service. And when they save, you save. The only way to know how much is to get a quote. Chances are youll save time, paperwork, and yes, dollars. When insurance is affordable, its surprisingly painless. After the failed lethal injection of ramel broom, the state of ohio proposed a new method of execution using midazolam. The medical community had immediate concerns. Traditionally the first drug was used to induce unconsciousness. Midazolam does not do that. If the inmate is not unconscious, and the inmate receives a second drug that paralyzes the muscles, that is a horrible, horrible situation where you are awake but you cannot move. You cannot breathe. So you have the sensation of suffocating, essentially. And you cant communicate to anybody that this is happening. Ohio originally proposed using midazolam as a backup plan, but the controversial drug would soon become their only option. Tonight, u. S. States are being forced to find new drugs for lethal injections since the europeanbased manufacturers banned the u. S. From using the drugs to carry out the death sentence. The suppliers, most of them in europe where they dont have the Death Penalty said we will not sell you drugs to kill people. Our drugs are not intended to kill people. In january 2014, ohio announced they would try their plan b drug, midazolam, on inmate Dennis Mcguire. Mcguire had been convicted of the rape and murder of a housewife named joyce stewart. He slashed her throat, severed her jugular. She was carrying a baby. Seven months pregnant. Seven months pregnant. The baby suffocated to death as well. If youre going to have the Death Penalty, this guys the poster child for it, for what he did. Tim young represented mcguire in his final appeals. When we went to court with mr. Mcguire we argued that midazolam was likely to leave him in severe pain, almost torture, as if he were drowning or unable to breathe and choking and gasping for air. But arguing the dangers of midazolam presented an unnerving catch22. The burden of proof is so high to show that its going to go bad it actually has to go bad. The judge said that this was clearly an experiment. But he likewise said that the inmate was not entitled to a pain free execution. The federal court has ruled that they believe the execution will be humane. If i believe that it would not be, we would not be proceeding. Dennis mcguire was led into the Execution Chamber on january 16, 2014. Dennis mcguire had a very brief but emotional final statement. He said he was sorry for what he had done, and he apologized to the family. He mentioned the son and daughter who were there and how he loved them. And then the drugs began flowing. It typically would have been five or six, maybe ten minutes, and it would have been all over, but after a few minutes, Dennis Mcguire beganckg in breath. For 13 minutes, his body was struggling not to die. It was obvious that he was trying to get air into his lungs, and the drugs were preventing it. And 13 minutes doesnt sound like very long. But if youre watching somebody do that with his family there, its an eternity. It just went on and on and on. And ill be candid, as a human being, i was at this point, going, please, just let him die. Let it stop. Finally, at 10 53 a. M. , Dennis Mcguire was declared dead. Yesterday, i watched the state of ohio kill my dad. I witnessed his execution along with my wife and my sister. After watching my dads execution, i know what cruel and unusual punishment is. Anger bubbled up quickly. This was so foreseeable and so obvious. The agony and terror of watching my dad suffocate to death lasted more than 19 minutes. I saw him just gasp for his air. His head kept coming up, and he just his mouth was wide open, and he was making all kinds of horrible noises. We just dont need to do this. Theres nothing in the name of the people that justifies this horrible, painful process before dying. Europes drug ban soon left other states facing their own drug shortages, and despite Dennis Mcguires botched execution, lessons from midazolam had yet to be learned. After the mcguire execution, i thought there would be no state that would consider using midazolam. They would be moving on. And i have since been disabused of that notion. Mcguire was predictable and foreseeable. How do you ever go forward after that moment . Thats just beyond horrifying to me. Irresistible. 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But less than six months later, arizona announced they would use midazolam on inmate joseph wood. Wood was found guilty of murdering his exgirlfriend and her father in 1989. We were very aware about what happened with the execution of Dennis Mcguire, so we asked the department of correction for information about the source of the drugs and the qualifications of the executioners and wardens, and the state of arizona told us to go pound sand. It would not disclose the source of the drugs, and it said, trust us, the people that are going to be doing this are qualified. Why all the secrecy . Because i think the departments of corrections would like to take care of this ugly little business in as efficient a way as possible. They have a job to do. They have executions to carry out. If people start raising questions about where the drugs come from, who the doctor is, then it slows down the process. Joseph wood was taken to the Execution Chamber at the state penitentiary in florence on july 23rd, 2014. At 1 52 p. M. , the state of arizona injected wood with 50 milligrams of midazolam. Five times the amount used in ohio. Mr. Wood opened his mouth wide and took a very deep breath. Suddenly, his mouth popped open. Like that. And everybody sort of jumped a little bit. Hadnt seen that before. You could see a spasm go through his body. You could see it went all the way down to his stomach. Gasping like a fish. It was extraordinarily loud. I started doing, you know, hash marks in my notebook. Each time that he would make that sucking sound, he was gulping. He was gasping, he was struggling to breathe. I eventually counted 240 hash marks. Went on and on. And i wondered is someone going to stop this execution. There were two lawyers sitting next to me, and i saw them get up and go out. One full hour into the execution, joseph wood was still alive. Baish called for the execution to be halted. We immediately filed a motion with the Federal District court asking the federal judge to stop the execution. They got an assistant attorney general on the phone. And he said, hes unconscious. Hes not feeling any pain. The judge said, well, do you have an eeg set up to him . Well, no, we dont. So, you dont know. On the call, the assistant attorney general admitted that a second dose of midazolam had now been given to wood. What was not reported was that 14 additional doses of the drug were administered while all this was going on. Nearly all drugs have what we call a ceiling effect. Even though joseph wood received a total of 750 milligrams of midazolam, he was breathing and his heart was working for nearly two hours. Eventually, joseph woods gasping slowed and it slowed. And eventually it petered out, and it was done. And then finally, it was over. After an hour and 57 minutes, joseph wood was finally declared dead, becoming one of the longest executions in u. S. History. To many, this was a clear case of cruel and unusual punishment. Joe wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die. I cant imagine this is what the criminal Justice System had hoped for. When they came up with this new drug protocol. There was someone from the Attorney Generals Office, it was very peaceful. He was sleeping and snoring. It was, like, no. This is not what it looks like. The victims family had little sympathy for joseph wood. Everybody here from what i heard said it was excruciating. You dont know what excruciating is, whats excruciating is seeing your father lying there in a pool of blood, your sister lying in a pool of blood. Thats excruciating. This man deserved it. This man conducted a horrifying murder, and you guys are going, oh, lets worry about the drug. And he was affected. Why didnt we give him a bullet, some drano. All you people that think the drugs are bad, well, the hell with you guys. One of the family members said, what does it matter if its done with drano . The answer is we dont do that. This is the united states. We have a constitutional amendment that forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Were supposed to be above that. With botched executions now spreading, questions mounted about the fate of the 3,000 people remaining on death row. And with the moral implications falling on those normally hidden behind the curtain, the executioners themselves began to speak out. I just felt like the people had the right to know that something has been cloaked in secrecy for years and years and years. I just wanted people to understand. Its not that i couldnt handle it. Its that i couldnt handle what it turned me into. Theres room for more than just the business you came for. Whether thats keeping up with what you always do. Or training for something youve never done before. crowd cheering thats room for possibility. Excuse me. Uh. Do you mind. Being a motour . What could be better than being a motour . The real question is. Do you mind not being a motour . I do. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. When lethal injection became the standard method of capital punishment, the executioners them self, some with little medical training, suffered unintended consequence. Reverend carroll picket witnessed 95 executions at the death house in huntsville, texas. Weve had guards who would strap people down and faint in the death house. Weve had guards come back in to undo the straps and theyd freeze because they cant touch death. They come and go quite rapidly. Every couple weeks another one changes. And they just couldnt do it. The life of an executioner is very much a hidden world. Literally shrouded in secrecy. Filmmaker patty dillon had a directed a film called there will be no stay. The executioners i spent the most time with worked their way up from a correction officer to a major, which is when they became executioners. It was the highest promotion. It just happened to include execution. Among the executioners patty found were craig baxley and terry bracy who carried out executions at the broad river prison in south carolina. The inmate less than just a few feet away. The duty that i had was to take the syringe, screw it in and then do the plunging. If the inmate does not die within a certain few minutes, then you have to actually do another set. Its not the fact that i couldnt do it. I did it. Its the fact that it changes you psychologically. It changes you into a different person, you know. I was not tra