COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio inmate who survived a 2009 attempt to execute him by lethal injection died Monday of possible complications from Covid-19, the state’s prison system said.
At the time of the 2009 trial, convicted prisoner Romell Broom was only the second prisoner nationally to have survived an execution after starting in modern times.
Sara French spokeswoman Sara Broom, 64, was placed on the “COVID probable list” maintained by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Prisoners on the list are thought to be dying of COVID-19, pending a death certificate, she said.
The state says 124 inmates have died from confirmed or probable cases of the coronavirus. One inmate on death row currently has a positive COVID-19 test, and 55 death row inmates were tested positive and subsequently recovered, French said.
Ohio successfully tried to kill Broom, then 53, by lethal injection on September 15, 2009. The execution was stopped after two hours when technicians could not find a suitable vein, and Broom cried in pain while receiving 18 needle sticks. . .
Broom was returned to the death struggle, where he fought unsuccessfully to avoid a second execution. His latest execution date was in June, but in the spring, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine issued a postponement and set a new date in March 2022.
His lawyers argued in the U.S. Supreme Court that he should be spared a second attempt.
Attorneys Timothy Sweeney and Adele Shank said in a statement that Broom survived the 2009 execution “only to live with the ever-increasing fear and distress that the same process would be applied to him on his next execution date.”
“Let him go this way, and not in the execution room, be the last word on whether a second attempt should ever be considered,” they said.
Broom was sentenced to death for raping and murdering 14-year-old Tryna Middleton after she abducted her in Cleveland in 1984 when she was walking home from a soccer game with two friends.
Ohio is now under a de facto death penalty moratorium because DeWine said lethal injection is no longer an option because the state is unable to find drugs. He says lawmakers will have to choose a new method.
In 2015, the execution team started working in a detention cell 17 steps from the execution room in Broom at around 14:00, due to a final federal appeal request.
Broom even helped his executions by helping them find veins. When his help made no difference, he turned on his back and covered his face with his hands. His torso twisted and his feet trembled. He wiped his eyes and found a roll of toilet paper that he used to wipe his forehead.
When the technicians tried to use a vein in his leg, he put on make-up and a member of the execution team patted him on the back.
Since the introduction of the electric chair, three other inmates in the United States have survived the first attempts to execute it after the trial began.
- May 3, 1946: The execution of Willie Francis (17) is postponed after an improperly prepared electric chair could not work in Louisiana. Francis was sentenced to death for the murder of St. Martinville, Louisiana, the drug lord Andrew Thomas, who once employed Francis. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow a second execution to proceed, rejecting double arguments. Louisiana successfully executed 18-year-old Francis on May 9, 1947 with an electric chair.
- November 15, 2017: The execution of Alva Campbell (69) by lethal injection was postponed after members of the Ohio executive team told the director of prisons that they could not find a vein. Campbell was sentenced to death for the shooting death of 18-year-old Charles Dials during a car hijacking in 1997. In preparation for Campbell’s execution, the Ohio Department of Prison decided to give him a wedge-shaped pillow to help him breathe while he was killed because Campbell had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease attributed to a decades-long smoking habit twice a day.
- February 22, 2018: The death of 61-year-old Doyle Lee Hamm, who struggled with lymphoma, in Alabama was postponed about 2 1/2 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court approved the execution, after prison officials announced they were discontinuing the procedure because medical staff did not think they could get ‘the appropriate venous access’ before a midnight deadline. Hamm was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of car clerk Patrick Cunningham.