Dec 10, 2009 -- 3:32PM, TemplarS wrote:

What happened to Mr. Broom was  inexcusable,  and should not have happened.

However, what really makes me nauseous is reading about people such as Mr. Broom raping and killing 14 year old girls.  Do not ask me to feel sorry for Mr. Broom, when he is still walking around and Tryna Middleton is not.

Temp, one can -- as I do -- feel nauseous at what happened to both Broom and his victim.  One can feel sorrow and sadness for both. 

It's a not uncommon assumption in the national conversation about the death penalty that one can feel shock, sorrow, or sadness only at the plight of either the killer or the killer's victim, but never at the plight of both.  That's a false assumption.

That one can feel and express shame, sadness, and sorrow for the attempted botched execution of Broom in no way negates the heinousness of his crime.  It also in no way detracts from the shame, sadness, and sorrow for Middleton's rape and murder.

The reality is that the human ramifications of both capital murder and capital punishment are much, much more complicated than a simple either/or equation.

The judge hearing Broom's case has granted a stay of execution.  Story here.

The judge ruled that Broom's lawyers have until January 8 to file a motion arguing that Broom should not face a second execution.  The judge also granted Broom an additional 30-day stay of execution from any ruling on that motion.  That 30-day delay will give Broom's lawyers more time to appeal if the judge rules that Ohio can go ahead with a second execution attempt.

By way of background on this case, Broom is the first condemned man in the US to leave his execution alive since 1946.  In 1946, the US Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana could go ahead with a second attempt to execute a prisoner after the failure of a first attempt to execute him by electric chair.