Some executions go down easy; others do not. The country witnessed this death penalty phenomenon this past week. On September 16 the State of Texas, at approximately, 6:20 p.m., put 52-year-old Stephen Moody to death with little fanfare and even less difficulty. Moody had been convicted and condemned to death for the killing of an alleged “drug dealer” by shooting him in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun nearly two decades ago. He was prepared to die; in fact, he had actually asked to be put to death by telling his attorneys not to seek any last minute stay.

            Two things wore Moody down: First, those long years on death row had gradually sapped his will to live; and, second, he experienced a “religious conversion” that changed his entire outlook about life and death. He reportedly found serenity with life and made peace with impending death through Jesus. In fact, he told the victim’s mother, without actually apologizing for killing her son, that he hoped she would find the same “peace.” He then said goodbye and “I love you” to family members before calmly saying, “Warden, pull the trigger.”

            The day before Moody’s uneventful execution Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was forced to issue a one-week stay for condemned rapist and murderer Russell Broom after prison officials spent two hours unsuccessfully trying to find a vein through which the lethal chemicals could pass to bring about death. Prison officials blamed Broom’s history of drug use as the reason why they could not locate a vein with sufficient strength to accommodate the lethal injection needle.

            But the State of Ohio has a history of botching executions. Several years ago an inmate had to take a “pee break” after prison officials could not find a suitable vein to use to extinguish his life. The inmate actually became so frustrated that he urged prison officials to give him some chemicals he could swallow to get the “ordeal” over with.

            According to prison telephone logs, Broom told his brother the day before his scheduled execution that he was also ready to die. Like Moody, he was tried of being in a death cell and having people tell him what to do.

            Broom’s lawyer, Tim Sweeney, told the news media his condemned client had “sustained both physical and mental injuries” during the execution attempt. Witnesses reported that the inmate appeared on the verge of crying from the frustration of watching incompetent prison officials poke and jab him with a needle trying to find a suitable death vein. Sweeney has announced he will not try to block a second execution attempt based on the “cruel and unusual punishment” his client has already been subjected to.

            Gov. Strickland needs to send his “prison officials” to Texas where they can be trained in the art of killing human beings through lethal injections. With 440 executions to its credit, including 17 so far this year, Texas has become an efficient killing machine. Their death machine, whose death notches far surpass any other death penalty state, is fine tuned and fulfills the adage, “practice makes perfect.”