Execution not botched? Yeah, well, the 'review' was.

Is it any surprise that an independent review that isn't independent decides that a botched execution was not botched?

When the murderer Joseph Wood was executed in July he gasped and snored for two hours while his executioner injected him with 15 lethal doses.

Not botched?

Not according to Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan, who told Gov. Jan Brewer in a letter that Wood was heavily sedated and did not experience pain.

Really?

And we know this because ... ?

That's what the "independent" report says?

That's the problem.

We can't draw an informed conclusion about just how badly the execution was botched because the review process was most definitely botched. It's simple: An independent review can't be done in-house.

Now, Ryan proposes to continue using the drug Midazolam (which has been linked to problem executions) only he wants to create a three-drug protocol instead of the two-drug cocktail used on Wood.

I'd guess that all of us would feel a lot better about that suggestion if it were to come as a result of a genuinely independent investigation into what went wrong with the Wood execution.

And, yes, something DID go wrong.

The condemned man died, of course. But in what barbaric world is a two-hour horror show with gasping, snoring and 15 doses of deadly drugs determined to be a success?

Ours.