OKLAHOMA, (April 30, 2014, CNN) — A botched lethal injection in Oklahoma has catapulted the issue of U.S. capital punishment back into the international spotlight, raising new questions about the drugs being used and the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
What went wrong Tuesday in Oklahoma “will not only cause officials in that state to review carefully their execution procedures and methods, it will also almost prompt many Americans across the country to rethink the wisdom, and the morality, of capital punishment,” said Richard W. Garnett, a former Supreme Court law clerk who now teaches criminal and constitutional law at the University of Notre Dame.
“The Constitution allows capital punishment in some cases, and so the decision whether to use it or abandon it, and the moral responsibility for its use and misuse, are in our hands.”
Precisely what happened during the execution of convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett remains unclear. Witnesses described the man convulsing and writhing on the gurney, as well as struggling to speak, before officials blocked the witnesses from seeing.
It was the state’s first time using a new, three-drug cocktail for an execution.
Thirty-two U.S. states have the death penalty, as does the U.S. government and the U.S. military. Since 2009, three states — New Mexico, Connecticut, and Maryland — have voted to abolish it.
States that have capital punishment have been forced to find new drugs to use sinceEuropean-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisonsfrom using theirs for executions. One of those manufacturers is the Danish company Lundbeck, maker of pentobarbital.
‘There was chaos’
Lockett lived for 43 minutes after being administered the first drug, CNN affiliate KFOR reported. He got out the words “Man,” “I’m not,” and “something’s wrong,” reporter Courtney Francisco of KFOR said. Then the blinds were closed.
Other reporters, including Cary Aspinwall of the Tulsa World newspaper, also said Lockett was still alive and lifted his head while prison officials lowered the blinds so onlookers couldn’t see what was going on.
Dean Sanderford, Lockett’s attorney, said his client’s body “started to twitch,” and then “the convulsing got worse. It looked like his whole upper body was trying to lift off the gurney. For a minute, there was chaos.”
Sanderford said guards ordered him out of the witness area, and he was never told what had happened to Lockett, who was convicted in 2000 of first-degree murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery.
After administering the first, “We began pushing the second and third drugs in the protocol,” said Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton. “There was some concern at that time that the drugs were not having the effect. So the doctor observed the line and determined that the line had blown.” He added that Lockett’s vein had “exploded.”
The execution process was halted, but Lockett died of a heart attack, Patton said.
Precisely what occurred remains unclear. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement saying that “execution officials said Lockett remained unconscious after the lethal injection drugs were administered.”
The state halted the execution of another inmate, Charles Warner, which was scheduled for later in the day. “I notified the attorney general’s office, the governor’s office of my intent to stop the execution and requested a stay for 14 days,” said Patton.
