Romell Broom - Still Alive

Romell Broom, 54, was convicted murdering 14-year-old Tryna Middleton on Sept. 21, 1984. 25 years later he was scheduled to die on Sept 15, 2009, after exhausting all appeals. He is still alive.

After trying for two hours, a team of technicians were unable to find a suitable vein in either his legs or his arms to inject the deadly concoction of drugs. Ohio's Gov. Ted Strickland ordered a one-week postponement of the execution after consulting with the Ohio Corrections Department.

This is Broom's second reprieve from death. He had been scheduled to die in October 2007, but he joined an inmate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal injection method and won a stay of execution. That challenge has since been dismissed.

Police records indicated that Tryna Middleton, a ninth grade student at Shaw High School in East Cleveland and two other teenage girls she was walking with at dark from a high school football game had been drinking beer and smoking marijuana. They were also thought to be sexually active and known to jump in cars with strangers, according to records.

Those two friends, Bonita Collier and Tammie Sims, said that Broom also grabbed them that night, Sept. 21, 1984, shortly before midnight. They fought him off while Tryna was dragged away. Tryna's body was found a few hours later in a nearby abandoned parking lot.

Broom, who had previously served time for raping a 12-year-old girl, was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder based on the testimony of the two other girls and his semen, found in the body of Tryna Middleton.

His lawyers described what happened on Tuesday Sept. 15 as torture and said they would try to block the execution. One of them, Adele Shank, said: “He survived this execution attempt, and they really can’t do it again. It was cruel and unusual punishment.”

According to reports Broom was very cooperative in assisting the technicians in trying to find a vein they could use.

He turned over on his left side, slid rubber tubing designed to clarify his veins up his left arm, then began moving the arm up and down while flexing and closing and opening his fingers. The execution team was able to access a vein, but it collapsed when technicians tried to insert saline fluid.

After that failed the team tried to insert shunts through veins in Broom's legs as he sat upright on the table. Unable to find a vein there, the team returned to Broom's arms to again. They finally gave up about two hours later and reported to prisons director Terry Collins that they were unable to find a suitable vein.

The team told him they didn't believe his veins would accept the saline fluid, or hold if the execution reached the point when the lethal drugs would start being administered. Collins contacted the governor who issued a reprieve for one week.

Collins said the difficulty in the process "absolutely, positively" does not shake his faith in the state's lethal injection procedure. He said his team wants to be "100 percent perfect 100 percent of the time" but that no one is.

"I have a team right now that's disappointed because they think they let me down," said Collins, who told the team they did not.

Collins said he thanked Broom after the reprieve was issued for the respectful way he dealt with the execution team and the demeanor he showed through the difficulties.

“This is the third screwed-up execution in three years,” said Jeffrey M. Gamso of the A.C.L.U. of Ohio. “They keep tweaking their protocol, but it takes more than tweaks. They don’t know how to do this competently, and they need to stop.”

Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that given the likelihood of legal appeals, there was little chance that Mr. Broom would be put to death next Tuesday.

“The question of whether this is still an acceptable punishment in our society,” he said of executions generally, “is compounded by this mistake.”

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Mexican Independence Day

September 16, 1810 was the day when father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest from the town of Dolores, near Guanajuato, Mexico rang the bell of his church and gathered his congregation together. Flanked by Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama and others, he called on all Mexicans to stand up and fight for the liberation of Mexico from Spain.

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His speech known as the Grito de Delores (the cry from Delores) was the beginning of a war that would last for 11 years and 11 days. Spain finally recognized an independent Mexico on September 27, 1821 by signing the Treaty of Cordoba.

Click the following links for details on the Mexican War of Independence and Independence Celebrations

Mexico celebrates its independence in September as do many other countries.

Country	Date	Holiday
Andorra	September 8 (1278)	Our Lady of Meritxell Day
Armenia	September 21 (1991)	Independence Day
Belize	September 21 (1981)	Independence Day
Botswana	September 30 (1966)	Independence Day (Botswana Day)
Brazil	September 7 (1822)	Independence Day
Chile	September 18 (1810)	Independence Day
Costa Rica	September 15 (1821)	Independence Day
El Salvador	September 15 (1821)	Independence Day
Gibraltar	September 10 (1967)	National Day15
Guatemala	September 15 (1821)	Independence Day
Guinea-Bissau	September 24 (1973)	Independence Day
Honduras	September 15 (1821)	Independence Day
Korea (North)	September 9 (1948)	Founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Libya	September 1 (1969)	Revolution Day
Mali	September 22 (1960)	Independence Day
Malta	September 21 (1964)	Independence Day
Mexico	September 16 (1810)	Independence Day
Nicaragua	September 15 (1821)	Independence Day
Papua New Guinea	September 16 (1975)	Independence Day
Qatar	September 3 (1971)	Independence Day
St. Kitts and Nevis	September 19 (1983)	Independence Day
San Marino	September 3 (A.D. 301)	Founding of the Republic
Saudi Arabia	September 23 (1932)	Unification of the Kingdom
Slovakia	September 1 (1992)	Constitution Day
Swaziland	September 6 (1968)	Independence Day
Tajikistan	September 9 (1991)	Independence Day (or National Day)
Uzbekistan	September 1 (1991)	Independence Day
Vietnam	September 2 (1945)	Independence Day

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Caster Semenya - Is She or Isn't She

In a previous post, I discounted the idea that Caster Semenya, 18, from South Africa (the women's 800-meter world champion), could be a hermaphrodite .....well I was wrong.

Australian media claimed to have obtained leaked details of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) tests. The Sydney Daily Telegraph said these showed that the 800-metre world champion has a chromosomal abnormality that means she has no womb or ovaries but internal testes that produce the male hormone, testosterone.

The IAAF has refused to confirm or deny the veracity of the article. However, IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said: "The statements should be treated with caution as they are not official statements by the IAAF."

"We have received the results from Germany, but they now need to be examined by a group of experts and we will not be in a position to speak to the athlete about them for at least a few weeks.

"After that, depending on the results, we will meet privately with the athlete to discuss further action."

The IAAF has confirmed it will not comment further on Semenya until after the IAAF council meeting in Monaco on 20-21 November. That has done nothing to quell the firestorm of speculation in the media and around the world.

Many are questioning why this issue was not resolved before allowing Semenya to compete on the world stage. Her country of South Africa is solidly behind her, even the President, Jacob Zuma, has issued a statement in her defense.

Some have taken issue with the term "hermaphrodite" being used to describe Caster Semenya and suggest that a more appropriate word would be "intersex" or more specifically Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS).

What this means is that even though outwardly a person may appear to be female, there are certain male characteristics, like internal male sex organs and testosterone production, that they also carry. One serious side effect of this condition is the likelihood of developing cancer.

....AIS people typically self identify as female. They can not have offspring. Sexual intercourse is limited because of the 'blind vagina" but this is fixable with surgery. Removal of the testes and 'fixing' of the blind vagina are not normally considered "gender reassignment." The testes removal is more of a life and death thing ... there is a high risk of cancer without that surgery.

Discussion of AIS may seem very clinical and abstract but it bears remembering that it affects real people, like Caster Semenya who is only 18 years old, still a teenager with most of her life ahead of her, and probably did not know before now that she had such a condition.

All her life she considered herself to be female, just like other females; her family considered her to be a normal female child; she interacted with others around her as a female; she was a female athlete competing with other female athletes. There is bound to be a tremendous psychological impact on discovering that she is not a normal female and moreover knowing that the world does not see her as a normal female. She may even be prevented from competing with other females in the future.

According to media reports Caster has gone into hiding. She is scared, sad and devastated by reports that she is a hermaphrodite. Some fear that she may be suicidal.

The chairman of South Africa's Parliament's portfolio committee on sport and recreation, Butana Komphela said.

"She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. She has been placed on an altar for all the world to see. If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads."

"I spoke to her today. She says she is okay. But I can hear that she is disguising a lot of agony. She is traumatised by all of this. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time," Komphela said.

Regardless of the mental trauma that Caster must be experiencing, there seems to be an effort to capitalize on her by the Athletics SA (ASA).

ASA boss Leonard Chuene said that they would soon start accepting bids for a management team for her. He said the ASA was protecting her as a brand but denied that they were cashing in on the publicity.

"She is a brand and a champion of the world. There is nothing sinister about protecting her from ambush marketing or hijacking. There must be an appearance fee for her to appear on magazine spreads. Those people who want to use her must pay."

Hopefully this is not just another example of people making a business out of other people's misery. Hopefully someone is looking out for Caster Semenya's best interests.

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Melissa Huckaby Faces Death Sentence

Melissa Huckaby, 28, accused in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, will likely face the death penalty. She was indicted in July on charges of murdering her daughter's playmate and drugging two other people.

Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa said he will seek the death penalty. He is seeking a speedy trial because younger witnesses he may call to testify will have a harder time remembering specifics about what happened.

Huckaby is charged with kidnapping and murdering Sandra, according to the indictment, along with lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and rape by instrument.

Sandra's body was found after an intensive search, in a suitcase discarded in a pond not far from where she lived.

A gag order has been placed on all parties involved in the case by Superior Court Judge Linda L. Lofthus, who has also sealed documents in the case, including the autopsy and toxicology reports and documents relating to a defense motion to exhume Sandra's body.

In addition to the murder of Sandra Cantu, Melissa Huckaby faces charges that she attempted to poison two other people: a 7-year-old girl, identified only as "Jane M. Doe" and a Daniel Plowman. She is also charged with child abuse related to the 7-year-old-girl who was "in her care and custody." She is scheduled to appear again in court of Sept. 25.

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Lubna Hussein Freed From Jail

Lubna Ahmed Hussein spent exactly one day, of her one month sentence, in jail. She had been found guilty of violating article 152 of the Sundanese criminal law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public. She was arrested and found guilty of wearing pants in public.

See an interview with Lubna Hussein before being found guilty:

After being found guilty, a fine of about $200 or one month in jail was imposed. Lubna refused to pay the fine, saying she did not want to "give the verdict any legitimacy", and was imprisoned. Read about the events that led to her being arrested and found guilty.

Mohedinne Titawi, of the Sudanese Union of Journalists, said the union had paid the fine to secure her release.

Upon her release, a defiant Lubna Ahmed Hussein vowed to continue the fight against the law:

"We will continue the fight to change this law, the public order police, the public order tribunals," she said at the offices of Ajras Al-Hurriya (Bells of Freedom) newspaper where noisy supporters celebrated her release.

Her case, which has attracted international attention, was closely watched and condemned by human rights groups.

The office of the UN human rights chief said her sentencing breached international law and exemplified the discrimination faced by women in Sudan.

"Lubna Hussein's case is, in our view, emblematic of a wider pattern of ... application of discriminatory laws against women in Sudan," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Amnesty International urged the Khartoum government to withdraw the charges against Ms Hussein, saying the law used to justify flogging women for wearing clothes deemed "indecent" should be repealed.

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