A man who spent decades on Ohio’s death row died before the state was able to carry out his execution, following years of delays and one highly controversial failed execution attempt.
Romell Broom was sentenced to death in Ohio in 1985 after being convicted of multiple crimes, including murder, rape, and kidnapping. Over the following 24 years, he remained on death row while his appeals made their way through the court system.
His execution was eventually scheduled for September 15, 2009, and was set to be carried out by lethal injection. But the procedure never got that far.
For nearly two hours, execution staff repeatedly tried to find a vein where they could insert the IV needed to administer the lethal drugs. According to reports, they attempted to place IV lines in 18 different locations on Broom’s arms and legs. During one attempt, the needle reportedly struck bone, according to UNILAD.
Unable to establish an IV, officials ultimately called off the execution and postponed it.
After the failed procedure, Broom argued that trying to execute him a second time would violate Ohio’s double jeopardy protections, which prohibit someone from being placed in jeopardy twice for the same crime. His challenge eventually reached the Ohio Supreme Court.
On March 16, 2016, the court rejected his appeal in a narrow 4-3 decision, clearing the way for another execution attempt.
How did Romell Broom die?
Writing for the majority, Justice Judith Lanzinger said the earlier attempt did not legally qualify as an execution because inserting the IV was only a “preliminary step.” According to the ruling, the execution itself would have begun “when the lethal drug enters the IV line.”
The court further concluded that “because the attempt did not proceed to the point of injection of a lethal drug into the IV line, jeopardy never attached” meaning Ohio’s double jeopardy protections did not apply.
Following that decision, the state scheduled a second execution for June 17, 2020 – 35 years after Broom was originally sentenced to death.
However, that date was also pushed back. On April 14, 2020, Governor Mike DeWine issued a reprieve because the state did not have the drugs needed to carry out the execution. The execution was later rescheduled for March 16, 2022, nearly 37 years after Broom first received his death sentence.
That execution never happened.
Broom died on December 28, 2020, at Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. Rather than dying by execution, the longtime death row inmate died from COVID-19.
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