Two other states, California and Maryland, also suspended executions by lethal injection because of procedural and constitutional challenges.

A legislative commission recommended January 2 that the death penalty be abolished in New Jersey and replaced with life imprisonment in a maximum security facility without possibility of parole.

The time it took Nieves Díaz to die was more than twice the normal 15 minutes. Following the autopsy, the medical examiner concluded the injections had been improperly administered. The needles had been pushed through the inmate’s veins, sending the deadly chemicals into his flesh. He had large chemical burns on both arms.

The execution struck a nerve in Puerto Rico, where Nieves Díaz was born, among opponents of the death penalty and supporters of Puerto Rico’s independence from U.S. colonial rule. Puerto Rico’s constitution outlaws capital punishment.

Approximately 100 people, including members of Nieves Díaz’s family, attended the viewing of his body after its return to the island.

Nieves Díaz had been sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of a bar manager in Miami. There were no eyewitnesses to the killing. The state’s key witnesses included Angel Toro, an accused accomplice, and a jailhouse informant, Ralph Gajus.

Toro cut a deal with prosecutors in exchange for a life sentence. Gajus received a lesser sentence in a separate case but has since retracted his testimony against Nieves Díaz.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in California ruled December 15 that the state’s current procedures for death by lethal injection violate a state ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In a 17-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said that there are serious problems in the way California carries out such executions—from poor training of those injecting the chemicals to sloppy handling of the deadly drugs.

The ruling delayed the execution of Michael Morales, whose attorney had challenged California’s lethal injection procedures. There are more than 650 death row inmates in California—the largest number in any U.S. state.

Maryland’s highest court halted executions December 19, saying that the state’s rules for death by lethal injection had been adopted improperly. The state agency in charge of executions had adopted a “lethal injection checklist” but was not following its own procedures. New regulations must be published in the state’s register, submitted to a legislative committee, and discussed at a public hearing, the court said.

In New Jersey the legislative commission’s report found “no compelling evidence” that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”

The last execution in New Jersey was in 1963. There are currently nine men on death row in that state.  
 
 
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