Joseph Rudolph Wood III's execution almost certainly will reinvigorate the national debate over the death penalty. One reporter who witnessed the execution, Troy Hayden of Fox 10 News, said it was "very disturbing to watch ... like a fish on shore gulping for air.  Convicted killer 'gasped and snorted' as officials attempted to execute him, as lawyers filed an emergency motion to halt the process 
 
 The controversy engulfing the death penalty in the United States escalated on Wednesday when the state of Arizona took almost two hours to kill a prisoner using an experimental concoction of drugs whose provenance it had insisted on keeping secret. Numerous legal challenges have been attempted in the courts arguing that such secrecy puts prisoners in danger because it prevents them from ensuring that the drugs being used to kill them are of sufficient strength and efficacy to do the job humanely without breaching their eighth amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment. The motion noted that Wood "has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour" after being injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs. See more videos 
 
 “One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner, and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer,” Brewer said in a statement. Arizona's highest court on Wednesday temporarily... (Associated Press) 
 
 Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's office said Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49 p.m., one hour and 57 minutes after the execution started. - Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman, Arizona attorney general's office 
 
 It took so long for Wood to die after receiving an injection of midazolam combined with hydromorphone that his attorneys filed emergency appeals to save his life. "He went to sleep and appeared to be snoring," she said. It was quite peaceful.” 
 
 Baich responded: “My observation was that he was gasping and struggling to breathe. “This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims — and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.” 
 
 Wood, 55, was sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 1989 shooting deaths of his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in Tucson. The victims' family members said the media were wrong to focus on the execution method rather than on the victims. Wood's last words were to his victims' family, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution: “I take comfort knowing today my pain stops, and I said a prayer that on this or any other day you may find peace in all of your hearts and may God forgive you all.” 
 
 There was no gasping of air. One eyewitness, Michael Kiefer of Arizona Republic, counted the prisoner gasping 660 times. The execution became so prolonged that reporters witnessing the execution counted several hundred of his wheezes before he was finally declared dead at 3:49 p.m. — nearly two hours after the procedure began. I just know it was not efficient. On Wednesday, he told the Guardian that he had thought about the problems with lethal injections for a long time, and that though his criticisms were not geared specifically to the Wood case in particular, he had decided it was time to speak out. I had no idea how this would go down in the Wood case, but it's obvious that this is the kind of process where there tends to be these kinds of problems.” 
 
 
 
 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been campaigning against death penalty secrecy in several states, said that Arizona had violated the first amendment, the eighth amendment and the bounds of basic decency. The latest petition initially was filed in Pima County Superior Court after a federal appellate court's stay was lifted Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court. Pima County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Lee dismissed Wood's first argument, but sent the question of Arizona's lethal-injection protocol to the state high court. The Arizona Department of Corrections planned to use a controversial drug, and it favors a controversial method of administering it, so Wood's attorneys demanded to know the qualifications of the executioners and the origin of the drugs to be used in the execution, claiming that Wood had a First Amendment right to the information. The chief judge of the ninth circuit federal appeals court, Alex Kozinski, told the Guardian that he was not surprised by what had happened. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which lifted the stay without addressing the First Amendment issue. But the Supreme Court has not been receptive to the tactic, ruling against death penalty lawyers on the argument each time it has been before justices. The case has highlighted scrutiny surrounding lethal injections after two controversial executions, including that of an Ohio inmate in January who snorted and gasped during the 26 minutes it took him to die. The Wood execution is certain now to provoke renewed debate about the concoctions of drugs used by death penalty states, as well as about the secrecy with which those states have shrouded the procedure. Joseph Wood took an hour and 58 minutes to die after he was injected with a relatively untested combination of the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone. Wood's attorneys had fought its use before the U.S. Supreme Court and then in a last-minute appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, saying the drug was "experimental" and had not been proven to be effective. The midazolam-hydromorphone combination used on Wood was also used by Ohio in January to put to death Dennis McGuire. Then, in April, Oklahoma murderer Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after his execution began — and after the state had called off his execution as he writhed and gasped. Once the father hung up, Wood pulled out a revolver, shot him in the chest and then smiled.
– Another botched execution? Arizona executed a murderer today, but it took Joseph Rudolph Wood nearly two hours to die, reports the Arizona Republic. It took so long that Wood's lawyers filed an emergency appeal to stop the procedure after an hour because they say their 55-year-old client was still gasping for air at that point, reports the Guardian. According to the court filing cited by the LA Times, the lethal injection began at 1:52pm local time. Five minutes later, the state said Wood was sedated, "but at 2:02 he began to breathe," wrote the attorneys. "At 2:03 his mouth moved. Mr. Wood has continued to breathe since that time. He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour. At 3:02 p.m. At that time, staff rechecked for sedation. He is still alive." The execution continued, and Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49pm, one hour and 57 minutes after the procedure began. The details of what happened aren't out yet, but the case is drawing immediate parallels to the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. Wood's lawyers had tried to stop the execution from taking place, arguing that he had the right to know where the lethal drugs were coming from, but the US Supreme Court allowed it to proceed. Wood murdered his girlfriend and her father in 1989, and the AP quotes a relative of the victims unmoved by the idea that Wood suffered any discomfort. "This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, 'Let's worry about the drugs,'" said Richard Brown. "Why didn't they give him a bullet, why didn't we give him Drano?"