(Washington) The execution of a 73-year-old American death row inmate was halted at the last minute in Idaho on Wednesday because he was unable to administer the lethal solution within the legal time limit, the prison administration of this state announced. Northwest State.
The last execution missed for similar reasons was that of Kenneth Smith in Alabama (southeast) on November 17, 2022. Definitively sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a woman ordered by her husband, he was finally executed on January 25 by inhaling nitrogen, a world first which sparked a wave of indignation.
All of the 24 executions carried out in the United States in 2023 were carried out by lethal injection.
The second scheduled for Wednesday in the United States, that of Ivan Cantu, 50, whose fate attracted the attention of celebrities, in Texas (south), however took place without incident, according to the prison administration of the state.
Thomas Creech, a serial murderer who spent more than 40 years on death row for killing a fellow inmate while serving a life sentence, was also scheduled to be executed by lethal injection.
But after about an hour, prison management concluded that it was impossible to “put him on an intravenous drip,” the Idaho Prison Service said.
She made this decision after eight attempts to place an IV on the convict’s arms or legs, said the director of the prison administration, Josh Tewalt.
“We do not yet have a notion of a timetable or follow-up measure,” he added, referring in particular to a possible rescheduling, which would require a new execution order.
Brenda Rodriguez, a local television station reporter who attended the execution with other media representatives, testified that Thomas Creech did not appear to have felt any serious pain, but had complained at one point that he was “a little sore legs”.
Mobilization for a reprieve
In Texas, Ivan Cantu, sentenced to death in 2001 for the 2000 firearm murders of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his fiancée, Amy Kitchen, proclaimed his innocence until the end.
“I want you to know that I did not kill James and Amy,” he declared to the families, according to the verbatim version of his last words communicated by the prison administration.
The prosecution’s main witness at his trial, his fiancée at the time, Amy Boettcher, claimed that Ivan Cantu confessed to the crime to her and drove her to the scene before taking her to Arkansas (south).
Amy Boettcher’s brother, Jeff Boettcher, also incriminated her at trial, but recanted following his sister’s death in 2021.
Ivan Cantu pointed the finger at a local drug dealer to whom his cousin owed a lot of money.
Following the discovery of new elements as well as the emergence of doubts about these prosecution testimonies, his execution, scheduled for April 2023, was suspended, but this suspension was later lifted by the Texas Court of Appeal .
The actor Martin Sheen, an opponent of capital punishment, had urged on Instagram to initial an online petition which had collected some 150,000 signatures, to ask the governor of Texas, the conservative Greg Abbott, for a stay of execution.
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian also called for mobilization to ask the governor for “a 30-day reprieve” in order to re-examine Ivan Cantu’s case.
The Texas Conference of Bishops voted for a reprieve, due to “serious uncertainties” surrounding the sentence.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 American states. Six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) observe a moratorium on executions by decision of the governor.
According to a recent poll by the Gallup Institute, a majority of Americans (50% versus 47%) believe that capital punishment is not fairly applied in the United States, a first since the launch of this survey in 2000. The majority (53%) nevertheless remains in favor of the death penalty, according to this survey.