On 60 Minutes, CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker investigates “the longest execution in US history.” Arizona death row inmate Joseph Wood was executed by lethal injection on July 23, 2014. It took nearly two hours for Wood to die. Death by lethal injection typically takes 20 minutes. Wood was injected 15 times, each time with 750mg each of midazolam and hydromorphone. According to The Guardian, that’s “15 times the amounts called for in the state’s execution protocol.”
[Book: Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
Whitaker interviews Arizona’s current Attorney General Mark Brnovich about the executions of Wood and murderer Jeffrey Landgergain, another criminal who was executed in Arizona (in 2010). Landgergain was injected with drugs that were illegally purchased from a supplier in London. “The State of Arizona knew or should have known that it was illegal to import these drugs,” Whitaker tells Brnovich, who reminds Whitaker that he was not in office when the two executions took place. However, Brnovich said this about the death penalty in August 2015: “The ultimate crime deserves the ultimate punishment. Too often, we focus on the defendants and what they’re going through and we forget about the horrible crimes these individuals committed and the horrible stress and tragedies that befell the victims.” Whitaker’s investigation will air on 60 Minutes on November 29 at 7:30pm on CBS.
