The gruesome botching of an execution in Ohio on Tuesday, when technicians failed to find a vein in a Death Row inmate, is casting a fresh spotlight on the flaws in America's system of capital punishment at a time when public support for it may already be flagging.

Lawyers for Romell Broom, convicted in the 1984 rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl abducted in Cleveland, were successful in blocking the state's plans to have a second go at dispatching him by lethal injection in three days' time, for the surreal reason that one week is not enough time for him to recover from his near-death.

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday, effective for 10 days, preventing a second execution attempt on Romell Broom from going ahead as planned on Tuesday.

Lawyers for the state consented to the request for a delay from Broom's legal team, who will argue that the pain Broom experienced during the aborted attempt violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A hearing is scheduled for 28 September on Broom's lawyer's request for a preliminary injunction against the execution.

'Horrific battle with executioners'

Tim Sweeney, an attorney for Broom, said his client is "relieved," but noted there is still work to do. "There's still a state that wants to execute Romell Broom even though he's been through this horrific two-and-a-half hour battle with the executioners on Tuesday, and it's our hope that we can convince the courts that once the state has tried once to execute this man and has failed, that they can't try again."

Sweeney also applied for a stay to the US supreme court in an attempt to get Broom added to a federal law suit against Ohio's lethal injection process. He filed another attempt to get the execution blocked with the Ohio supreme court.

The case is one of several that have galvanised anti-death penalty campaigners recently. Others included a grandmother on death row in Texas, Linda Carty, who, though from St Kitts originally, has British nationality, and another Texas inmate who, it turns out, was tried by a judge who was romantically involved with the prosecutor.

On Thursday, a Texas court rejected the latest appeal by lawyers for 50-year-old Carty, claiming that her defence at trial had been sufficient. Earlier this month, supporters of Carty broadcast a message to the British public to help her from a loudspeaker on a plinth at Trafalgar Square in London. "Please don't let me die here," said Carty, who maintains she was framed.

"If Texas goes ahead with her execution, Linda will die because she had a bad lawyer, and because the British government was not given the chance to help her at a time when it could have made a difference," Sally Rowen, legal director of the London-based anti-death penalty group Reprieve said this weekend. "Last week the British public listened to Linda from the fourth plinth, but the fifth circuit [the US appeals court] doesn't seem to be listening at all."

Broom's case does little to dispel the idea that Carty's end would even be peaceful. The 53-year-old reportedly tried to assist technicians in finding a vein, at one point lying on his side and sliding the tube up and down his forearm and flexing his fingers. But his assistance did not help. At 2.49pm, Broom "wiped his face with a tissue", and "appeared to be crying". Eventually, the team at the so-called "death house" gave up.

Defence lawyers contended that seven days was insufficient time for their client to overcome the horror of what happened.

"Even if it never goes away, I think it's wrong to try to do it again so quickly in these circumstances," Tim Sweeney said.

A federal judge has meanwhile ordered that Broom be allowed to give a legal deposition on Monday in a broader case brought by the Ohio public defenders' office challenging the practice of lethal injection.

Lethal injection is the preferred method for carrying out executions. Executions were put on hold nationwide in 2007, however, while the supreme court examined the constitutionality of death by lethal injection. While the top court eventually ruled that executions could resume, problems over the use of lethal injection mean they are still on hold in several states.

Confidence in the effectiveness and reliability of the death penalty has been eroding since the beginning of the decade, when Illinois introduced a moratorium that is still in place. Some states, including New Jersey and New Mexico, have passed laws banning the practice, and support appears to be slipping. Yet a majority of Americans remain opposed to any repeal.

Appeals from Jimmy Carter and the pope

Advocates of an end to the death penalty have had moments to cheer, most recently in August, when the supreme court issued a ruling allowing lower courts to reopen cases where inmates on Death Row seem to have new evidence. It did so in the case of Troy Anthony Davis. Since his conviction for killing a policeman in Georgia, seven prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimonies and appeals for a pardon have come from Jimmy Carter and the pope.

But they also they suffer setbacks. Although Charles Dean Hood, also on Texas' death row, was granted a last-minute reprieve in June 2008 when a former district attorney confirmed reports he had had an affair with the judge at his trial, the Texas court of appeals last week denied a request for a retrial, saying that his defence team had raised the issue too late.

"This decision will only add to the perception that justice is skewed in Texas," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, adding that it appears that "obvious and outrageous violations of the constitution are acceptable in death penalty cases".