Disinformation Book of Lists by Russ Kick

23, 1998; Texas; lethal injection. It took two attempts to complete the execution. After Cannon made his final statement, the 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.
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    Genaro Ruiz Camacho
    August 26, 1998; Texas; lethal injection. The execution was delayed approximately two hours due, in part, to problems finding suitable veins in Camacho's arms.
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    Roderick Abeyta
    October 5, 1998; Nevada; lethal injection. It took 25 minutes for the execution team to find a vein suitable for the lethal injection.
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    Allen Lee Davis
    July 8, 1999; Florida; electrocution. “Before he was pronounced dead…the blood from his mouth had poured onto the collar of his white shirt,” reported the Gainesville Sun , “and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a dinner plate, even oozing through the buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair.” The execution was the first in Florida's new electric chair, built especially so it could accommodate a man Davis' size (approximately 350 pounds).
    Later, when another Florida death row inmate challenged the constitutionality of the electric chair, Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw commented that “the color photos of Davis depict a man who—for all appearances—was brutally tortured to death by the citizens of Florida.” Justice Shaw also described the botched executions of Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina, calling the three executions “barbaric spectacles” and “acts more befitting a violent murderer than a civilized state.” Justice Shaw included pictures of Davis' dead body in his opinion. The execution was witnessed by a Florida State Senator, Ginny Brown-Waite, who at first was “shocked” to see the blood, until she realized that the blood was forming the shape of a cross and that it was a message from God saying he supported the execution.
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    Christina Marie Riggs
    May 3, 2000; Arkansas; lethal injection. Riggs dropped her appeals and asked to be executed. However, the execution was delayed for eighteen minutes when prison staff couldn't find a suitable vein in her elbows. Finally, Riggs agreed to the executioners' requests to have the needles inserted into her wrists.
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    Bennie Demps
    June 8, 2000; Florida; lethal injection. It took execution technicians 33 minutes to find suitable veins for the execution. “They butchered me back there,” said Demps in his final statement. “I was in a lot of pain. They cut me in the groin; they cut me in the leg. I was bleeding profusely. This is not an execution; it is murder.” The executioners had no unusual problems finding one vein, but because Florida protocol requires a second alternate intravenous drip, they continued to work to insert another needle, finally abandoning the effort after their prolonged failures.
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    Claude Jones
    December 7, 2000; Texas; lethal injection. Jones' execution was delayed 30 minutes while the execution “team” struggled to insert an I.V. 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