toledoblade.com --

COLUMBUS - The nearly 90 minutes it took Ohio to execute Joseph Lewis Clark on Tuesday is believed to be the second-longest lethal injection on record in the United States.

"You only hear about the unusual ones," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. "There's no guarantee that every one is reported, but we know of only one longer, two hours [in Texas in 1998].

"Clearly this issue in Ohio will add to much larger serious challenges that have been raised about lethal injection," he said. "When you have medical procedures being performed by non-medical personnel, errors and problems are inevitable."

As it prepares for his funeral, Clark's family has engaged an attorney and has at least explored the possibility of having a private autopsy conducted.

"We had a good vein when we started, and it collapsed. That had nothing to do with the process," said Terry Collins, the new director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "We had 20 [executions] that went without incident. This case was unique from the beginning."

Clark, 57, was officially declared dead at 11:26 a.m. Tuesday, 86 minutes after the official start of his execution, a process that typically takes 10 minutes.

He was executed for the murder of David Manning, a 23-year-old Toledo husband and father, who was working as a gas station clerk in 1984. Clark was also convicted of murdering a second man, Donald Harris, 21, during another convenience store robbery and was sentenced to life in prison for that crime.

Prison personnel worked for 25 minutes to find usable veins in both arms to attach intravenous tubes, but the execution team could not find one in his right arm. The decision was made to proceed with one IV shunt in the left.

Clark calmly but tearfully proceeded to give the longest final statement a lethal injection inmate has given. When the execution process began, he became agitated. Instead of falling asleep under the effect of the first of three drugs, he raised his head from the gurney, repeatedly shook it, and loudly declared "It don't work" five times.

The execution team closed a curtain between Clark and the witnesses.

"Poor Joe. He was ready to die, and they weren't doing it right" said Clark's attorney, George Pappas, an execution witness.

The IV in Clark's left arm had failed, apparently because of scar tissue that had built up over years of intravenous drug use more than two decades ago. By the time the curtain was reopened nearly half an hour later, Clark appeared to have already fallen asleep.

"I can only guess - I'm not a medical person - that some of the initial drugs had entered his system prior to the vein collapsing and had gotten to the point that he went to sleep," said Mr. Collins.

He said what happened behind the curtain was what witnesses had observed on a video monitor earlier when the team was initially preparing Clark for execution by trying to find two workable veins. He said Clark was "not in distress, not struggling," and that staff acted in a professional, dignified manner.

Dr. Jonathan Groner, an associate surgical professor at Ohio State University and critic of the lethal injection process, said the first drug to sedate Clark, sodium pentothal, may have gone into tissue around the vein. That could have been painful, he said.

"Clark, who had been an IV drug user, probably knew what that felt like," he said. "He'd probably done it himself, and that's why he said it's not working. After three or four minutes, he may have already gotten a fair amount under his skin, and then it began to seep back into his system."

The execution team is composed of ODRC employees with some medical technician training who volunteer for the task. The team rotates 15 or 16 members, spokesman Andrea Dean said.

There are no doctors or nurses on the team because the department does not like to put them in a position that conflicts with their ethical beliefs, Mr. Collins said.

Mr. Collins said the process will be reviewed and he expects the review to be completed by July, when the next execution is scheduled. He said some things to be looked at include the condemned having two intravenous lines before going to the execution chamber and whether the execution needs to start and stop at certain times.

"It wasn't his time to go," said Nevelle Stallworth, Clark's nephew. "If it didn't work the first time, it was not meant for him to leave. He didn't deserve to go out like that."

Attorney Alan Konop, who is representing the Clark family, called the incident "horrendous" and "tragic."

"We are in the process of gathering all information and doing a thorough investigation and moving toward litigation," he said.

The delay did not deter Mr. Manning's widow, Mary Ellen Gordon, who said afterward she would have been willing to wait until midnight to see the execution through.

Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.

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