A lawyer representing an Alabama death row inmate whose lethal injection was recently halted after staffers could not connect an intravenous line says his client should not face a second date in the death chamber.
An attorney for Doyle Lee Hamm wrote in state court filings yesterday that Hamm had experienced "torture" during the failed attempt to execute him two weeks ago. Bernard Harcourt says attempting the procedure again would violate a constitutional ban on cruel punishment.
Hamm has severely compromised veins from a battle with lymphoma as well as past drug use.
A doctor hired by the prisoner's legal team wrote that Hamm had 11 puncture sites and bled heavily from his groin after the first lethal injection attempt. Photos submitted to the court showed Hamm's feet were blackened.