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NATIONAL BRIEFING / OHIO

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Times Wire Reports

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland ordered a weeklong reprieve for a condemned inmate after the state execution team had problems finding usable veins for the lethal injection.

Executioners spent more than two hours trying to find veins that would accept fluid from an IV without collapsing for 53-year-old Romell Broom, who was sentenced to die for the rape and slaying of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in 1984. Broom tried to help executioners find a vein and, at one point, covered his face with his hands and appeared to be crying.

The scene was reminiscent of problems that delayed executions in 2006 and 2007 and led to changes in Ohio’s lethal injection process.

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