(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal by a condemned Ohio killer whose 2009 execution was called off after two hours during which he cried in pain while receiving 18 needle sticks.
The court’s ruling denies death row inmate Romell Broom the opportunity to argue that giving the state prisons agency a second chance to execute him would amount to cruel and unusual punishment and double jeopardy.
Broom is only the second inmate to survive an execution in U.S. history and the only via lethal injection. In 1947, Louisiana electrocuted 18-year-old Willie Francis by electric chair a year after an improperly prepared electric chair failed to work. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow the second execution to proceed, rejecting double jeopardy arguments.
Broom was sentenced to die for raping and killing 14-year-old Tryna Middleton after abducting her in Cleveland in 1984 as she walked home from a football game with two friends.
The Ohio Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Broom’s state appeal. The court sided with prosecutors who say double jeopardy doesn’t apply to Broom because lethal drugs never entered Broom’s veins while executioners unsuccessfully tried to hook up an IV.
Prosecutors also argue that a previously unsuccessful execution attempt doesn’t affect the constitutionality of Broom’s death sentence.
Despite the ruling, a second execution is years away because of other scheduled executions and uncertainty over the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs.
Broom’s 2009 execution was stopped by then-Gov. Ted Strickland after an execution team tried for two hours to find a suitable vein. Broom has said he was stuck with needles at least 18 times, with pain so intense he cried and screamed.
An hour into the execution, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction recruited a part-time prison doctor with no experience or training with executions to try — again, unsuccessfully — to find a vein.
Broom, 60, has been back on death row since. No new execution date has been set.