The latest execution in Arizona has apparently gone real bad.
Lawyers filed emergency papers to stop the execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona on Wednesday, saying prison officials botched the lethal injection.
"He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour," according to the motion filed in federal district court in Arizona. "He is still alive."
Wood, 55, was convicted of killing his girlfriend and her father in 1989.
Update: NBC has more info.
Apparently it took the prisoner two hours to die.
4:34 PM PT: NBC adds: "His execution date had been put on hold several times as the case wound its way through last-minute appeals. One of those decisions was notable for a dissent in which the chief judge of a federal appeals court said the guillotine would be better than lethal injection for executions."
From the Guardian:
The office of the Arizona attorney general, Tom Horne, said Wood was pronounced dead at 3.49 pm local time, one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started.
Only a few minutes earlier, his lawyers had attempted to have the process halted, in an emergency court application to the US district court in Arizona. "We respectfully request that this court stop the execution and require that the department of corrections use the lifesaving provisions required in its protocol," the lawyers said.
"He is still alive. This execution has violated Mr Wood’s eighth amendment right to be executed in the absence of cruel and unusual punishment," the court filing added.