Arizona prisoner dies in botched execution involving lethal injection

In Arizona on Wednesday, a man convicted of murder died in an execution gone wrong.

Double-murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood gasped for breath in the botched execution at Florence state prison. It took more than 90 minutes for the inmate to die. Most executions take 10 minutes, according to AZ Central. While the execution was in process, Wood’s attorneys filed an emergency appeal to try to stop it while he was still alive.

According to the AZCapitolTimes, Gov. Jan Brewer is ordering a state review of its execution process, including the amount of time that it took Wood to die.

Many are debating whether the botched execution constitutes cruelty. Dying by lethal injection has been protested by the American Civil Liberties Union as cruel and unusual punishment.

According to the LA Times, Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, said in a statement, “Instead of hiding lethal injection under layers of foolish secrecy, these states need to show us where the drugs are [coming] from. Until they can give assurances that the drugs will work as intended, they must stop future executions.”