2nd Ohio Execution Try Delayed Further

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A federal judge on Tuesday further delayed an unprecedented second attempt to put a condemned rapist and killer to death by lethal injection.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost's order, which pushes a hearing on the fate of inmate Romell Broom from next week to Nov. 30, was unopposed by the state. It gives the state and Broom's attorneys time to gather more information to argue over trying to execute Broom again for the 1984 rape and murder of a teenage girl he abducted at knifepoint in Cleveland.

Gov. Ted Strickland stopped Broom's Sept. 15 execution after about two hours when executioners failed to find a usable vein. No Ohio governor has issued a similar last-minute reprieve since the state resumed executions in 1999.

Broom, who said he was stuck with needles as many as 18 times, was seen weeping during the procedure and later complained of painful needle sticks into his bone and muscles.

During the execution attempt, he even tried to help the executioners secure his death. He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers. The execution team was able to access a vein, but it collapsed when technicians tried to insert saline fluid.

Broom then became visibly distressed, turning over on his back and covering his face with his hands while crying.

His attorneys have sued in state and federal courts to prevent a second execution attempt, saying it would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Executioners claimed they couldn't find a usable vein because Broom had used intravenous drugs in the past.

"Medical team having problem maintaining an open vein due to past drug use," said a minute-by-minute log the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction kept during the execution.

But Broom's brother questioned the allegation of intravenous drug use.

"He did not do drugs," Randall Broom said Tuesday. "I know he smoked a little marijuana. But the hard drugs, no."

He said the state shouldn't get a second chance to execute his brother.

"It's like double jeopardy," he told The Associated Press. "They couldn't do it. So why should they do it again? They should have did it the first time."

Romell Broom, 53, was sentenced to die for the rape and stabbing death of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason has called Broom's allegations about cruel and unusual punishment ironic given the nature of his crime.

"I am absolutely certain," Mason said last week, "that it was Tryna Middleton that suffered from cruel and unusual punishment."

Strickland's decision to stop the execution and grant a one-week reprieve appeared to be unprecedented since capital punishment was declared constitutional and the nation resumed executions in the 1970s. Inmates in several states have experienced delays with the injection of lethal chemicals, but those executions always proceeded the same day.

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