Deborah Denno comments to the Gainesville Sun on the execution of William Happ, which marked the first time in the history of executions in the United States that the anti-anxiety drug Midazolam, commercially known as Versed, was the first drug used in a three-drug protocol.
Most states also have switched to a one-drug protocol, particularly after the failed execution of Romell Broom in Ohio in 2009. Several people tried for two hours to find a vein in which to administer the lethal injection drugs, but they stopped after his cries and screams, said Deborah Denno, a leading national expert on lethal injection at Fordham University in New York.
Denno said that Florida’s own history of botched executions is ample, and should be a check for the state to get in line with what other states are doing in terms of execution protocols.
“You’d think a state with that reputation would be the first to treat (executions) more carefully than they have,” Denno said.
Read the entire Gainesville Sun story.
