Local News

After Nearly 2 Years, Florida To Resume Executions

Mark Dean Schwab Is Scheduled To Die On Tuesday

TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) ― For the first time since a botched execution nearly two years ago, Florida Department of Corrections officials are preparing to execute a condemned inmate.

Mark Dean Schwab, 39, is scheduled to die on Tuesday; 16 years after he was sentenced in the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez. Schwab raped and killed Junny a month after he was released early from a prison sentence he got for raping a 13-year-old boy, who was from Cocoa.

All Florida executions were put on hold after the December 2006 death sentence of Angel Diaz was carried out. During Diaz's execution the lethal injection needles were accidentally pushed through his veins, causing the chemicals to go into his muscles instead. This delayed his death for 34 minutes, nearly twice as long as normal.

Former Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions, and along with several other states waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on whether the three-drug method of lethal injection used by Kentucky was constitutional. Thirty-four other states, including Florida, use a similar method.

On Tuesday, the new procedures for execution will require the warden to make sure the inmate is unconscious following the injection of the first chemical, sodium pentothal. Pancuronium bromide will then be injected to paralyze the condemned man's muscles; finally potassium chloride will be injected to stop the heart.

Schwab and his attorneys aren't so sure the problems are fixed.

An analysis done for Schwab's lawyers showed that nine of the 30 mock executions performed by Florida's Department of Corrections were failures. Correction officials say the mock exercises have included preparation for potential problems such as a combative inmate, the incapacity of an execution team member, power failure and finding a vein.

The state has argued successfully in several courts that the procedure meets all constitutional tests against cruel and unusual punishment and that Schwab cannot raise the issue again.

On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected Schwab's latest appeal claiming the new procedure still carries the risk of causing intense pain and suffering.

Schwab's attorneys are expected to next turn to the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed eight lethal injections to continue since upholding the Kentucky case.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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