1. March 13, 1985. Texas. Stephen Peter Morin. Lethal Injection. Because of Morin’s history of drug abuse, the execution technicians were forced to probe both of Morin’s arms and one of his legs with needles for nearly 45 minutes before they found a suitable vein.

2. August 20, 1986. Texas. Randy Woolls. Lethal Injection. A drug addict, Woolls helped the execution technicians find a useable vein for the execution.

3. June 24, 1987. Texas. Elliot Rod Johnson. Lethal Injection. Because of collapsed veins, it took nearly an hour to complete the execution.

4. December 13, 1988. Texas. Raymond Landry. Lethal Injection. Pronounced dead 40 minutes after being strapped to the execution gurney and 24 minutes after the drugs first started flowing into his arms. Two minutes after the drugs were administered, the syringe came out of Landry’s vein, spraying the deadly chemicals across the room toward witnesses. The curtain separating the witnesses from the inmate was then pulled, and not reopened for fourteen minutes while the execution team reinserted the catheter into the vein. Witnesses reported “at least one groan.” A spokesman for the Texas Department of Correction, Charles Brown (sic), said, “There was something of a delay in the execution because of what officials called a ‘blowout.’ The syringe came out of the vein, and the warden ordered the (execution) team to reinsert the catheter into the vein.”

5. May 24, 1989. Texas. Stephen McCoy. Lethal Injection. He had such a violent physical reaction to the drugs (heaving chest, gasping, choking, back arching off the gurney, etc.) that one of the witnesses (male) fainted, crashing into and knocking over another witness. Houston attorney Karen Zellars, who represented McCoy and witnessed the execution, thought the fainting would catalyze a chain reaction. The Texas Attorney General admitted the inmate “seemed to have a somewhat stronger reaction,” adding “The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose or more rapidly.”

6. April 23, 1992. Texas. Billy Wayne White. Lethal Injection. White was pronounced dead some 47 minutes after being strapped to the execution gurney. The delay was caused by difficulty finding a vein; White had a long history of heroin abuse. During the execution, White attempted to assist the authorities in finding a suitable vein.

7. May 7, 1992. Texas. Justin Lee May. Lethal Injection. May had an unusually violent reaction to the lethal drugs. According to one reporter who witnessed the execution, May “gasped, coughed and reared against his heavy leather restraints, coughing once again before his body froze …” Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk wrote, “Compared to other recent executions in Texas, May’s reaction was more violent. He went into a coughing spasm, groaned and gasped, lifted his head from the death chamber gurney and would have arched his back if he had not been belted down. After he stopped breathing, his eyes and mouth remained open.”

8. April 23, 1998. Texas. Joseph Cannon. Lethal Injection. It took two attempts to complete the execution. After making his final statement, the execution process began. A vein in Cannon’s arm collapsed and the needle popped out. Seeing this, Cannon lay back, closed his eyes, and exclaimed to the witnesses, “It’s come undone.” Officials then pulled a curtain to block the view of the witnesses, reopening it fifteen minutes later when a weeping Cannon made a second final statement and the execution process resumed.

9. August 26, 1998. Texas. Genaro Ruiz Camacho. Lethal Injection. The execution was delayed approximately two hours due, in part, to problems finding suitable veins in Camacho’s arms.

10. December 7, 2000. Texas. Claude Jones. Jones was a former intravenous drug abuser. His execution was delayed 30 minutes while the execution “team” struggled to insert an IV into a vein. He had been a longtime intravenous drug user. One member of the execution team commented, “They had to stick him about five times. They finally put it in his leg.” Wrote Jim Willett, the warden of the Walls Unit and the man responsible for conducting the execution, “The medical team could not find a vein. Now I was really beginning to worry. If you can’t stick a vein then a cut-down has to be performed. I have never seen one and would just as soon go through the rest of my career the same way. Just when I was really getting worried, one of the medical people hit a vein in the left leg. Inside calf to be exact. The executioner had warned me not to panic as it was going to take a while to get the fluids in the body of the inmate tonight because he was going to push the drugs through very slowly. Finally, the drug took effect and Jones took his last breath.”

The AP is reporting that “Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in Florida after a medical examiner said Friday that prison officials botched the insertion of the needles when a convicted killer was put to death earlier this week.

Separately, a federal judge in California imposed a moratorium on executions in the nation’s most populous state, declaring that the state’s method of lethal injection runs the risk of violating the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.”

The moratoriums in these two states are based on problems with the method of lethal injection. Texas executes many more people than any other state, so there is a strong probability of botched executions in Texas too. However, the bigger problem in Texas is that innocent people are at a high risk of execution in Texas. Recently, there have been credible reports that three innocent people were executed in Texas, Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos De Luna.

The next session of the Texas Legislature, which gets underway in January, should enact emergency legislation to halt executions in Texas, so that we can ensure that no more innocent people are executed in Texas.

Rep. Harold Dutton of Houston is expected to file legislation that would enact a moratorium and create a commission to study capital punishment in Texas.

Robert Black, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry, said, “Perry has no plans to announce a moratorium on the death penalty and executions,” Black said Friday. “He believes it is administered fairly, justly and in accordance with the law.”

Perry was re-elected in November with 39 percent of the vote.

Grace Maalouf, of Baylor University’s The Lariat, wrote a story this week focusing on Jeanette Popp, whose daughter was murdered in 1988 in Austin. Jeanette pressured the Travis County DA not to seek the death penalty against her daughter’s killer.

Popp’s daughter was murdered in Austin in 1988, but during the trial of her daughter’s killer, Popp was strongly against the death penalty.

Two men were wrongfully convicted for her daughter’s murder and spent 12 years in prison, she said.

“Had they been given the death penalty, they surely would have been executed,” Popp said. “And what does that make us? That makes us murderers, just like the people we’re killing.”

So when her daughter’s murderer was convicted in 2001, she begged him to take a plea bargain.

“He told me he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in a Texas prison,” Popp said.

So she said she went public with her appeals.

“I asked people to call the district attorney’s office and demand that they take the death penalty off the table, and they did,” Popp said.

She said the offender got two consecutive life sentences, which was what she wanted.

“I wanted him punished, but without punishing his loved ones,” Popp said.

Popp said the support of family and friends kept her from turning her grief into anger. But she also said her religious beliefs were the biggest factor in healing after the murder.

“My faith in God helped get me through this,” Popp said.

Popp, who is Catholic, said her religious beliefs also contribute to her views on the death penalty. But not everyone shares those views.

…

Popp said her religious objection is to human unnaturally taking any life.

“We have no right to take human life,” Popp said. “No one gave us that right. That’s God’s right.”

“I don’t care if it’s the man that murdered my daughter, a drunk driver, abortion, whatever. We have no business doling out the final punishment.”

Not everyone agrees with her stance on the death penalty, though, including some family members, Popp said. But Popp hasn’t let that stop her from turning her pain into a passion.

“I’ve been an activist for six years now, and I’m very proud of what I do,” Popp said.

She said she and others who share her vision have worked hard to influence the state and local governments.

Popp also pointed out the change in sentencing options for jurors.

In June of 2005, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill giving juries the option of sentencing capital offenders to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Before, if it was a person who had committed a murder, the only choice (the jury) had was life in prison – which gives them the possibility of parole – or execute them,” Popp said.

She said she thinks the new option represents important progress.

“I believe you will see less and less execution as jurors are given that choice,” Popp said.

Popp said the possibility of innocent people being executed is one of the biggest objections she has to the death penalty.

“The death penalty is such a final thing,” Popp said. “And with over 100 people exonerated from death rows because they were there for crimes they didn’t commit, we’re making mistakes. And if we’re making mistakes, we don’t need to be in the business of killing people.”

Popp believes life in prison without the possibility of parole is the best answer sentencing options because any potential mistakes won’t be final. With the death penalty, she said, all the punishment creates is more victims.

“Everybody we execute has a mother, a father, a husband, children, people who love them,” Popp said. “And you’re victimizing those people, because you’re murdering their child like that man murdered my child.”

“I would not put another mother through that pain for anything.”

From 2001 to 2004, Popp served as chairwoman of the Texas Moratorium Network.

“Our goal is to create a moratorium on executions in Texas along with a study commission that would look into the problems of the administration of the death penalty,” said Scott Cobb, president of the organization.

“We work with different organizations that are interested in criminal justice reform, as well as churches and faith-based groups,” Cobb said.

He said the group currently has about 10,000 members trying to influence the Texas legislature and local governments to pass moratorium resolutions temporarily suspending use of the death penalty.

The organization also supports an office of statewide defenders of capital punishment cases to handle cases of people from when they’re arrested throughout the appeals process, Cobb said.

“A lot of people executed received the death penalty where they really should have been punished with a lesser punishment like life without parole,” Cobb said. “And in some cases they were completely innocent and there would have been a different outcome had they had better representation.”

Popp said she now views what she does as an effort to honor her daughter.

“Neither one of us believed in death penalty,” Popp said. “I hope what I do honors her memory.”

“Because I would much rather honor her in that way than to murder in her name.”