Romell Broom

Romell Broom (born June 4, 1956) is an American convicted of murder, kidnapping, and rape. He was convicted in 1984 of abducting and killing Tryna Middleton, age 14, who was walking home from a football game in East Cleveland, Ohio. In 2003, Broom accepted an offer from the state of Ohio for a DNA test to prove his innocence—however, the test results failed to exonerate him. The clemency hearing concluded that "the DNA report does not indicate an exact match, but does indicate that the likelihood of Broom [not] being the donor is 1 in 2.3 million. Otherwise stated, eight or nine other people in the country would have the same profile." Broom has repeatedly requested independent DNA retesting and a change of legal team.

Broom also has convictions for robbery, aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnap of a male child. He was also convicted in a separate incidence of raping a female child.

Broom was scheduled to be executed on September 15, 2009. However, the executioners tried for two hours to maintain an IV line through which they could inject the lethal drugs, before Ohio Governor Ted Strickland issued a one-week reprieve. Broom's lawyers argue that his first execution attempt was cruel and unusual punishment, and that executing him would mean that his evidence would be "irretrievably lost" for their broader lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s lethal injection procedure. U.S. District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost scheduled a November 30, 2009, hearing on the issues. As of February 2011, Broom was awaiting the outcome of an appeal. Amnesty International started a campaign to inform the public about the failure of the execution attempt. There is also a documentary on this case, The Second Execution of Romell Broom by Michael Verhoeven, and Broom himself has written his own story in the e-book Survivor on Death Row.

In March 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Broom and ruled that the state can again try to execute him. In August 2016, Broom asked the US Supreme Court to halt a second execution, with his lawyers arguing that another execution attempt would be cruel and unusual punishment and would violate double jeopardy protections under the Fifth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution.