MIAMI Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida, has called a temporary halt to all executions while a panel reviews how lethal injections are administered, after the lingering death of a prisoner on Wednesday.
Ángel Nieves Díaz, 55, took 34 minutes to die and had to be administered two lethal doses when the needle missed his vein, piercing tissue instead.
The executive order does not mandate the reviewing panel to propose other methods of capital punishment. It asks it only to examine whether lethal injections are administered properly.
Nieves’s botched execution has rekindled the debate on whether the injections constitute cruel and unusual punishment
December 16, 2006
