COLUMBUS – The Ohio Supreme Court says the state can try again to execute a condemned killer who survived a 2009 botched execution.
The court ruled 4-3 Wednesday to reject arguments by death row inmate Romell Broom that giving the state prisons agency a second chance would amount to cruel and unusual punishment and double jeopardy.
The state stopped Broom’s 2009 execution after two hours when executioners failed to find a usable vein following 18 attempts to insert needles.
Broom was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in East Cleveland.
Broom, 59, is only the second inmate to survive an execution in U.S. history and the only via lethal injection.
The state said lower courts properly determined that any mistakes happened during execution preparations, not the actual procedure.
The court ruled that the execution had not begun when an IV line could not be established to deliver lethal drugs into an inmate’s body even though a needle was inserted multiple times, so a second attempt to execute Romell Broom by lethal injection would not violate the cruel and unusual punishment or the double jeopardy clauses of the federal and state constitutions.
Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger stated in the majority opinion that by law the death penalty begins with the application of lethal drugs, and since the execution team stopped after it could not keep an IV catheter functioning, Broom’s punishment had not started.
In separate opinions, dissenting justices countered that Broom is entitled to a hearing to prove a second attempt would also fail under the state’s procedures, and that the first attempt constituted cruel punishment.
Broom also still has federal appeals pending.