Arizona Botches Execution, Imposes Cruel and Unusual Punishment on Joseph Wood

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NEW YORK – At 3:49 PM MST, the state of Arizona executed Joseph Wood by lethal injection. This was the fifth execution in the United States since Clayton Lockett's horrific death in Oklahoma in April. Says Cassandra Stubbs, Director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project:

Today the state of Arizona broke the Eighth Amendment, the First Amendment, and the bounds of basic decency. Joseph Wood suffered cruel and unusual punishment when he was apparently left conscious long after the drugs were administered. According to his emergency papers filed by his attorneys, he was choking and snorting over an hour into the process. In its rush to put Mr. Wood to death in secret, Arizona ignored the dire and clear warnings from the botched executions of Oklahoma and Ohio. It's time for Arizona and the other states still using lethal injection to admit that this experiment with unreliable drugs is a failure. Instead of hiding lethal injection under layers of foolish secrecy, these states need to show us where the drugs are coming from. Until they can give assurances that the drugs will work as intended, they must stop future executions.