Killer’s veins might not work for lethal IV
A lack of good veins to transport lethal drugs can now be added to the health problems complicating Alva Campbell’s execution.
The finding is raising fears among some that the Ohio execution chamber near Lucasville will again be the scene of a marred procedure.
Campbell, a twice-convicted murder, is scheduled to be killed with intravenous drugs Nov. 15. But an examination Oct. 19 by a nurse working for the state found no veins in his arms or legs that would accommodate an IV.
Officials with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction aren’t saying much about what they’ll do if that’s still the case on execution day.
The prisons agency “has taken Campbell’s medical conditions under consideration for planning of possible accommodations for his execution,” spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said in an email.
Campbell, 69, is scheduled to die for the 1997 kidnapping and murder in Columbus of 18-year-old Charles Dials. He had overpowered a deputy sheriff and took her gun after faking paralysis.
At the time of Dials’ murder, Campbell was likely headed back to prison for committing armed robberies while on parole for a 1972 aggravated murder. When Campbell committed that murder, he was on parole for shooting a cop.
An examination by Beth Higginbotham, a state nurse, checked Campbell’s arms, hands, legs and feet and found “no suitable sites identified for possible IV insertion,” her report said.
Asked about the report, Smith sent the corrections department’s meticulous protocol governing executions. It says that Campbell’s veins will be examined again when he arrives at the Death House 24 hours before his execution. Then, if problems are encountered inserting an IV during the procedure, the warden will confer with staff members about what to do next.
Such problems have occurred before.
In 2009, then-Gov. Ted Strickland stopped the execution of Cleveland killer Romell Broom, after corrections workers made 18 attempts over two hours to insert an IV. Witnesses said that after several failures, Broom himself began pointing out spots on his arm to try.
The Ohio Supreme Court last year ruled 4-3 that Broom, who remains alive on death row, still can be executed without violating constitutional prohibitions of cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2014 convicted killer Dennis McGuire caused national controversy when he choked, clenched his fists and appeared to struggle against his restraints for about 10 minutes before dying on Ohio’s execution table. Executions were halted in the state until earlier this year, while officials changed the IV drugs that are supposed to render the condemned unconscious before killing them.
An anti-death-penalty activist said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who will decide the parole board’s recommendation, should consider the prison workers who have to carry out Campbell’s execution.
“Most people probably don’t care if Alva Campbell feels a little pain on the way out,” said Abe Bonowitz of Ohioans to Stop Executions. “But what this does to the prison workers is traumatizing.”
Corrections officials might opt for another procedure to execute Campbell, said his attorney, David Stebbins.
When Higginbotham examined Campbell, he told her a doctor had previously done a “cut down” on his left arm to administer an IV.
But it’s not clear of the corrections workers who will conduct the execution are qualified to perform such a procedure. Doctors and nurses take professional oaths that prevent them from participating in executions.