15 February 2023 , 18:27
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A death row prisoner was forced into an ordeal of pain and suffering as multiple execution attempts on him failed despite previous warnings to the state.
Doyle Lee Hamm's execution in 2018 was called off after two and a half hours of staff trying to find a suitable vein in which to place the intravenous line.
Hamm had been suffering from terminal cranial and lymphatic cancer since 2014, which contributed to his death at the age of 64 on November 27, 2021, according to his lawyer, Columbia University Law School Professor Bernard Harcourt.
Harcourt said that he would miss Hamm's "generous, giving spirit" and the "positive attitude" he continued to maintain after surviving the botched execution.
Hamm was convicted of the 1987 murder of Cullman hotel clerk Patrick Cunningham in the course of a robbery.
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His execution was called off - but he died five years later of cancer (blogs.law.columbia.edu)Before the execution attempt, Alabama was warned that it would likely be impossible to set an intravenous line for Hamm's execution due to his cancer, hepatitis C, and prior history of drug use.
Anesthesiologist Dr Mark Heath examined Hamm in September 2017 and concluded that "the state is not equipped to achieve venous access in Mr Hamm's case."
In a New York Times commentary, Harcourt wrote at the time that Hamm "will suffer an agonizing, bloody, and painful death" if prison officials proceed with the execution as planned.
Harcourt argued in a petition to the US Supreme Court that executing Hamm by lethal injection would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The Court briefly stayed his execution, before allowing it to proceed over the dissent of Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor.
Immediately after the execution was called off, corrections commissioner Jeff Dunn said that he wouldn't characterise what they had that night as a problem.
Disturbing pictures show his wounds (blogs.law.columbia.edu)
He was stabbed 11 times with needles (blogs.law.columbia.edu)Dunn was unable to describe what the state had been doing during the time that Hamm was being prepared for the lethal injection and dismissed questions about failed attempts to set the IV lines.
He said he was not qualified to answer medical questions and insisted that the execution had been called off because prison personnel did not have "sufficient time" to find a suitable vein in which to place the intravenous execution line before the death warrant expired.
A later medical examination of Hamm found that the state likely punctured his bladder and artery during the attempt to set an IV line.
The state's attempt to execute Hamm sparked a court battle over Alabama's execution secrecy policy.
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Three media outlets sued the state for access to its execution protocol and to judicial records related to Hamm's aborted execution.
On May 30, 2018, Judge Karon Owen Bowdre ordered Alabama to release its lethal-injection protocol and unseal the requested records.
The state reached a confidential settlement with Hamm in March 2018, agreeing not to execute him.