McCain called Arizona's drawn-out lethal injection 'terrible.' McCain: Arizona execution 'torture'

A botched execution in Arizona on Wednesday amounted to “torture,” said the state’s senior senator John McCain.

The longtime Republican lawmaker, who experienced years of torture while being held in captivity by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, called the drawn-out lethal injection execution of Joseph Wood on Wednesday “terrible.”


“I believe in the death penalty for certain crimes. But that is not an acceptable way of carrying it out. And people who were responsible should be held responsible,” he said in an interview. “The lethal injection needs to be an indeed lethal injection and not the bollocks-upped situation that just prevailed. That’s torture.”

Wood was given a toxic mix of chemicals that took nearly two hours to kill him on Wednesday, according to The Arizona Republic, whose reporter said Wood “gulped like a fish on land” for 90 minutes.

Executions in Ohio and Oklahoma have also gone awry this year, prompting renewed scrutiny of the practice by politicians and the media. The manufacturer of a key chemical previously used in the lethal mixture has stopped production, which has led states to experiment with a different mix.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she was “concerned” with the length of time the execution took and said she was ordering a review of the practice. But she said “justice was carried out.”

“Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer. This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims — and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family,” said the Republican governor.

McCain said he had no plans to speak with Brewer about the matter.

“It’s a state issue,” he said. “The decision is made by the state Legislature and the governor.”