Workman?s death does not end lethal injection debate

Philip Workman ? convicted of killing a Memphis police officer in 1981 ? was executed Wednesday morning using the revised procedures for injecting a lethal three-drug cocktail after federal appeals courts refused to consider objections to the method.

The 53-year-old was composed as curtains were pulled back to show him strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

?I?ve prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ not to lay charge of my death to any man,? he said when asked by Warden Ricky Bell if he had any final words.

He then closed his eyes and about two minutes later said, ?I commend my spirit into your hands, Lord Jesus Christ.? He took his last visible breaths as his head drifted to the left and he appeared to go unconscious.

About 17 minutes elapsed from the time he was first shown to witnesses to when he was pronounced dead at 1:38 a.m.. He showed no obvious signs of discomfort or pain.

Workman had contended in court papers that problems with the lethal injection procedure could mean he would die in excruciating pain. There is concern that happened in Florida in December when lethal injection drugs were mistakenly injected into the tissues of Angel Nieves Diaz instead of his veins. He required a second dose of lethal chemicals and took twice as long as usual to die.

In February, Gov. Phil Bredesen placed a 90-day moratorium on executions in Tennessee so the state could revise its execution procedures. In announcing the reprieve, Bredesen pointed to a number of problems with the state’s guidelines for putting people to death, such as the procedures not detailing standard dosage amounts for the three chemicals used during a lethal injection.

An Associated Press review of the old execution procedure manual found it was a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixed lethal injection instructions with those for the electric chair.

At least 30 states use the three-drug cocktail ? thiopental, an anesthetic; pancuronium bromide, a nerve blocker and muscle paralyzer; and potassium chloride, a drug to stop the heart. The anesthetic is supposed to render the inmate unconscious while the other drugs kill him.

Besides Tennessee, executions have been halted in 10 other states so procedures could be reevaluated: Florida, California, Missouri, New Jersey, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and South Dakota and Ohio.