May 2
TEXAS----impending execution(s)
Texas plans 3 executions as courts mull secrecy of lethal drugs
As Oklahoma continues to feel the aftershocks from its botched execution
attempt on Tuesday, attention is turning to Texas, where a key secrecy ruling
is expected to be made later this month.
The next US execution is scheduled for 13 May in the nation's most-active death
penalty state, where Robert Campbell is set to be given a lethal injection for
the abduction and murder of Alexandra Rendon, a bank employee, in Houston in
1991.
The 41-year-old will be put to death using the sedative pentobarbital, but the
source of the drug remains unknown amid a series of legal skirmishes, as in
Oklahoma, over whether the state is allowed to withhold fundamental details
about the deadly chemicals in its possession.
Texas has been at the heart of the execution secrecy debate in recent weeks as
it has continued to execute prisoners after refusing to comply with freedom of
information requests seeking to reveal the quantity and origins of its latest
set of drugs.
This onset of coyness contradicted previous rulings by the Texas attorney
general's office stating that such information should be available to the
public. While lawyers for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and
death-row inmates litigated the issue in various state and federal courts,
Texas officials asked the office of Greg Abbott, the state attorney general,
for a new ruling.
That request was filed on 25 March and the deadline for a decision is 29 May,
though it can be extended by a maximum of 10 days, according to a spokesperson
for Abbott's office.
Critics of capital punishment said that the messy and alarming way in which
Clayton Lockett died in Oklahoma - ultimately of an apparent heart attack after
the failure of an execution that was to use an experimental drug cocktail -
underlined the dangers of a lack of transparency.
"What we saw in Oklahoma certainly reverberates in Texas, where the TDCJ
refuses to disclose their drug supply," said Kristin Houle, executive director
of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
"The biggest takeaway from Oklahoma is that secrecy doesn't work. The botched
nature of Mr Lockett's execution started weeks ago when Oklahoma closed its
doors and refused to provide information to Mr Lockett's lawyers," said Maurie
Levin, one of the lawyers working on secrecy litigation.
Lawyers for Campbell are considering how to pitch possible last-minute appeals
in the light of what happened on Tuesday. "Officials in Texas should be gravely
concerned over the events in Oklahoma. Texas, like Oklahoma, continues to
insist on keeping secret the source of the drugs it uses in executions, which
precludes any meaningful institutional oversight," said Rob Owen, one of
Campbell's attorneys.
"Transparency is absolutely indispensable to avoiding horribly botched
executions like Mr Lockett's. We are still considering what steps might be
taken in Mr Campbell's case to try and ensure no such outrage takes place in
Texas on 13 May."
The TDCJ updated its website on Thursday afternoon to reveal that another three
executions have been scheduled for August, September and January.
Litigation related to recent Texas death penalty cases is ongoing as lawyers
for inmates argue that a lack of available details about drugs which are likely
sourced from lightly-regulated compounding pharmacies means that prisoners
cannot be certain they will avoid a painfully inefficient death that violates
their constitutional right not to suffer a "cruel and unusual" punishment.
In documents filed to a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday,
lawyers seeking transparency in Texas described the current dispute over access
to information as a "stand-off between inmates and executioners".
They added that Lockett's fate "gruesomely underscores the importance of
transparency, judicial oversight, and the crucial importance of keeping some
doors open to death-sentenced inmates to assert their right to be executed in a
manner that comports with the eighth amendment's prohibition against cruel and
unusual punishment".
Lawyers for the TDCJ have previously argued that concerns are baseless since
the state now has a solid track record of properly carrying out executions
using single-drug pentobarbital since mid-2012 and has conducted its own
drug-quality tests.
The state also contends that secrecy is increasingly necessary to ensure
potential suppliers are not scared off by negative publicity or threats of
violence made by anti-capital punishment activists. Death penalty opponents say
that officials have exaggerated the risk and are asking for secrecy as a way to
hide questionable and ever-more desperate attempts to source drugs that have
become scarce mainly because of Europe-led boycotts.
Lawyers for Michael Yowell, who was executed last October, alleged in a court
document that in an effort to trick a compounding pharmacy into supplying them
with pentobarbital, Texas officials placed an order that was to be delivered to
the address of a prison hospital that had closed 30 years earlier. When the
pharmacy discovered the drugs were to be used for lethal injections the order
was cancelled.
A TDCJ spokesman told the Guardian on Wednesday that Texas had no plans to
review its procedures in light of events in Oklahoma because it uses a
different drug protocol. "We monitor our system very carefully to make sure we
never have happen in Texas what happened in Oklahoma," Abbott told the Dallas
Morning News.
"I have no indication or evidence or reason for concern that we will have
happen in Texas what happened in Oklahoma," he said. "The protocol in Texas is
different than the protocol used in Oklahoma ... It's like comparing apples and
oranges."
However, if Texas runs out of pentobarbital and fails to source a new supply,
it would be forced to turn to an alternative drug or drugs. The state's refusal
to disclose information about its stocks means it is unclear how much
pentobarbital it still has, or the expiry date.
Court records from last year suggest that Texas is, or at least was, in
possession of propofol, midazolam and hydromorphone, presumably as a back-up
option to pentobarbital. Midazolam, a sedative, was used on Tuesday in
Oklahoma. Any change to Texas's protocol, especially if it involved the use a
drug at the core of a controversy, would be bound to prompt more litigation on
behalf of death-row prisoners.
(source: The Guardian)
****************
Humane, safe executions mandatory in Texas
The botched execution in Oklahoma on Tuesday that the White House said fell
short of humane standards - in which an inmate writhed up from a gurney for
several minutes and moaned before he eventually died from a heart attack -
could play out in Texas, but we can't know as long as prison officials here
continue to refuse to disclose to the public the lethal drugs used and their
source.
Unless the state is more willing to be answerable to the public that it serves,
we believe Gov. Rick Perry, who has repeatedly avowed his pro-life status,
should issue a moratorium on executions until we, as a society, can rectify a
protocol that includes transparency and that we know is constitutional.
We understand the visceral temptation to declare that those on death row
deserve this type of death. But we cannot allow society to use the instrument
of the state for vengence. The legal justification in any modern-day
condemnation is that the condemned person presents an ongoing danger to society
and should, therefore, be put to death to quash that danger. It has never been
an eye for eye. Nor should it be. The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution
forbids cruel and unusual punishment. And the state of Texas has an obligation
to meet that standard.
Texas leads the nation in executions. We aren't saying executions are right or
wrong, but the act must be done within the confines of our laws and, more
important, of the U.S. Constitution: safely and humanely.
Texas has on hand the same drugs used in the Oklahoma execution, the Texas
Tribune reports, and has the latitude to use those drugs whenever it wishes
without informing the public. State officials must be transparent about the
mixtures of drugs used and the protocol for administering lethal doses.
A witness for The Oklahoman described a gruesome scene after the first of a
cocktail of drugs was intravenously given to Clayton Lockett, 38, on Tuesday
night:
"Lockett grimaced and tensed his body several times over a 3 minute period
before the execution was shielded from the press. After being declared
unconscious 10 minutes into the process, Lockett spoke at 3 separate moments.
The first 2 were inaudible, however the 3rd time he spoke, Lockett said the
word 'man.'"
Lockett's death did not occur until 43 minutes after the triple cocktail of
drugs was administered. State Corrections Director Robert Patton later said
vein failure may have prevented the chemicals from delivering a deadly blow.
The drug midazolam, which was used on Lockett, is stored by the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice and can be used at any time in the state's death
penalty protocol. Documents obtained by defense attorneys and shared with the
Texas Tribune show that TDCJ obtained midazolam last June. The Tribune reports
that the state has about 30 vials of the drug with an expiration date of 2015.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has halted future executions and ordered the
Department of Corrections to review the state's execution procedures to
determine what went wrong.
With these same drugs available in Texas, and until the transparency issues are
resolved, therefore we call upon Gov. Perry to issue a moratorium on executions
in our state until lawmakers put forth clear rules and procedures to ensure no
other inmate must endure what Lockett did.
(source: The Monitor)
*********************
Dallas Medical Examiners to Assist With Oklahoma Execution Investigation
North Texas investigators will be involved in the process of finding out what
happened during a botched execution in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death for shooting a teenager
and watching as she was buried alive. His lethal injection began at 6:23 p.m.
Tuesday but was halted after about 20 minutes when he tried to talk and
suffered seizures.
An Associated Press witness said the blinds were lowered in the execution
chamber at 6:39 p.m. and Lockett died of a heart attack at 7:06 p.m.
It was the 1st use of a new combination of drugs for lethal injection in
Oklahoma.
A 2nd inmate who was scheduled to be execution on Tuesday had their execution
stayed until an investigation into the incident can be completed.
Following the incident, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin ordered that the remains of
Lockett are to be transported to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's officer
for a post mortem examination.
Texas Attorneys to Challenge State's Execution Drug Policy
Controversy continues of the mixture of drugs used in executions in both
Oklahoma and Texas. Neither state discloses what drugs are used, nor who
supplied them.
Criminal defense attorneys are already mapping strategy to halt Texas
executions after Tuesday's botched lethal injection in Oklahoma.
"It's shocking that the government would torture people like this," Dallas
criminal defense attorney John Tatum said.
Tatum represents several Texas death row inmates, including Naim Muhammad,
convicted of the 2011 Dallas drowning his two children. Tatum said the Oklahoma
incident is reason to challenge all lethal injections.
"Every case that's pending in the state or any state that uses a different
cocktail of drugs to kill people," Tatum said.
Tatum was one of several defense attorneys attending a conference Wednesday on
capital punishment defense, where talk turned to the execution of Clayton
Lockett.
"The duration of it is what was cruel and unusual in my view," said attorney
Rick Wardroup.
The attorneys said Texas has refused to disclose the source of lethal
injections drugs it is using now. "We don't know whether it's coming from
China," said attorney Brad Lollar. "There's just no telling. And there's no
quality assurance there."
Former prosecutor Toby Shook handled 21 death penalty cases. He witnessed the
2012 execution of Texas 7 leader George Rivas for the murder of Irving Police
officer Aubrey Hawkins. "He went very calmly. It was very clinical," Shook
said.
Shook said The State of Texas will claim its lethal injection procedures are
not flawed. "I'm sure what the state will argue is that we haven't had these
problems in Texas and the process has worked," Shook said.
The next execution scheduled in Texas is inmate Robert Campbell for the 1991
robbery, rape and murder of a Houston woman.
(source: nbcdfw.com)
CONNECTICUT:
New Haven public defender: Oklahoma's botched execution shows death penalty is
"barbaric"
New Haven Chief Public Defender Thomas Ullmann views the state of Oklahoma's
botched execution of a convicted murderer Tuesday night as fresh evidence the
death penalty should be banned nationwide and Connecticut's death row inmates
given life sentences without the chance of parole.
Ullmann represented Steven Hayes, now on death row for his role in the Cheshire
triple-homicide. Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, also sentenced
to death by a New Haven Superior Court jury, are appealing their sentences.
During the July 2007 home invasion, Dr. William Petit Jr. was beaten with a
baseball bat and tied up. His wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, was sexually
assaulted and strangled by Hayes. Their daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley,
17, were tied to their beds and died of smoke inhalation when the house was set
on fire. Petit escaped from the house by stumbling out of the basement.
Connecticut abolished the death penalty in April 2012, but the new law does not
apply to the 11 convicted killers already on death row, including Hayes and
Komisarjevsky.
Petit has been an outspoken defender of the death penalty. He has told the New
Haven Register he considers it "adequate and just punishment."
But Ullmann, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, said he was disturbed
and offended when he read about Oklahoma's attempt to execute Clayton Lockett.
Lockett, convicted for shooting a woman and burying her alive, died 43 minutes
after a lethal injection process that was supposed to be quick and painless.
Witnesses said he writhed, twitched and mumbled, rolling his head from side to
side. Corrections officials announced the execution was being aborted but then
reported he had died of a heart attack.
Oklahoma prison officials were using a new 3-drug injection combination,
according to The Associated Press. After the sedative was administered, a
doctor declared Lockett was unconscious. But when the 2nd and 3rd drugs were
being administered, a problem was noticed and Lockett began writhing. A
Department of Corrections official later said Lockett's vein had ruptured.
"What happened in Oklahoma stands out as another example of how outrageous the
death penalty is," Ullmann said. "It's a barbaric policy that is so offensive,
so brutal in its execution. This is another reason for us to get hold of this
statute and abolish it across the country, including for those on death row in
Connecticut."
Ullmann added, "We're supposed to be the moral leaders of the world. But many
countries abroad are far ahead of us." He noted the European Union has banned
the death penalty.
Asked about the prospects of Connecticut lawmakers drafting and passing a
statute to give the state's death row inmates life in prison without parole,
Ullmann said, "I'm hoping the lights will turn on in the legislature. But it
won't happen this term."
Reached for comment Thursday, Petit said of the Oklahoma news, "I think it's
much ado about nothing. The guy had a blown vein. He was essentially
unconscious from the time the procedure began until he died. I don't think he
suffered any pain."
Petit noted "the awful things" Lockett did to the 19-year-old woman, including
shooting her twice and watching while 2 accomplices buried her alive.
"His own mother said he deserved the death penalty," Petit noted.
Petit said what disturbs him is "the moral bankruptcy of the attorneys who
defend these guys ad nauseam."
He noted Hayes and Komisarjevsky were convicted after criminal trials, then
separate penalty phase trials.
"They had every chance," he said.
But Ullmann said that beyond the moral question of the death penalty, the state
of Connecticut is spending "enormous amounts of money" contesting legal appeals
by the death row inmates' lawyers.
"It's a total waste of money," Ullmann said.
He added that those funds should be used for cash-strapped treatment programs
for inmates and others in the criminal justice system.
When asked if he thinks Hayes will ever be executed, Ullmann replied, "I'm
worried about it. We will take whatever steps we can to prevent it from
happening."
Ullmann said one potential ground for saving Hayes' life could be that "his
mental state is seriously in question." Hayes again tried to kill himself in
March by overdosing on medication.
Hayes is being held in an isolation cell 24 hours a day, Ullmann said. He
described Hayes as "totally depressed" because of guilt over what he did to the
Petit family and "his suffering at the hands of the people guarding him."
(source: New Haven Register)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death row inmates have a humanity worth recognizing
For several months I have been volunteering at Central Prison in Raleigh,
teaching a writing class to men on death row. I thought that no one would
benefit more from memoir-writing and self-reflection than those whose lives
hold a known expiration date.
Throughout a career in drug policy and social work, I've spent a lot of time
with society's most vilified groups: drug dealers, sex workers, prisoners,
undocumented immigrants. Anyone can seem inhuman if all you know about him is
the worst thing he has ever done. Yet I have not once met a person I would
consider evil. I've met people I might not like and some who have done shameful
things, but under every tough or cruel exterior there was always something
good, something redeemable, something worth saving.
I volunteered to work with death row inmates partly to see whether my belief
that no one is truly evil would still hold.
I have been meeting twice a month with about 15 men on death row, and the
experience has been both edifying and moving. I don't see heartless killers,
though they might have killed in a moment of heartlessness. I see anger
problems, stubbornness, lack of self-control, immaturity and miseducation. I
see those qualities in people outside prison, too. I see them in myself
sometimes. But in these men I also see pain, regret, a capacity for kindness
and self-reflection - and a desire to be seen for what they are: flawed and
very human.
Were the death penalty a deterrent to murder, it might be defensible.But
overwhelming evidence shows that state-sanctioned execution does not prevent
violent crime, and states that impose capital punishment do not have fewer
murders than those that have abolished the death penalty. Given that, it is
important to ask ourselves why we would support a measure that is both
ineffective and ironic. For closure? For Old Testament justice? Just as beating
a child does not teach him that violence is wrong, killing a convict does not
teach others that killing is wrong. Murder is still murder, senseless and
unnecessary whether committed by an individual or by a state.
After spending time with these men and listening to their stories, I don't
claim to know them thoroughly or to fully comprehend why they did what they
did. Nor do I defend the crimes of any man on death row, certainly not the
crimes of Jonathan Richardson, most recently sentenced to death for the murder
and sexual assault of a 4-year-old girl. But I will defend their humanity
because I experience it every time I walk through those prison doors.
I would challenge those who support the death penalty to spend time getting to
know a death row inmate on a personal level. In each of these men there are
many things worth understanding, worth supporting and worth saving. I hope you
would come to realize that the death penalty has no place in a just society and
that revenge is no way to honor the dead.
(source: Opinion; Tessie Castillo lives in Cary----News & Observer)
FLORIDA:
Anti-death penalty activist presses state for lethal drug info
In the wake of Oklahoma's botched execution, the head of a Florida anti-death
penalty group has asked the state for information about its lethal injection
drugs.
Sheila Meehan, chair of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty,
Wednesday sent a public-records request to the Department of Corrections,
records show.
She asked for copies of "purchasing orders, prescriptions, contracts, invoices,
bills, payments," as well as the names of makers and distributors of the drugs
the state uses.
The department acknowledged the request the same day and told her it was "under
review."
Corrections officials, however, have previously refused to disclose how much of
the execution drugs the state has or where it gets them.
Corrections Department spokeswoman Jessica Cary previously told a Tampa Tribune
reporter that information about sources or supplies was confidential under
state law.
Clayton Lockett, 38, an Oklahoma death row inmate, reportedly writhed and
appeared to struggle during his lethal-injection execution on Tuesday. The
execution was halted but Lockett later died of a heart attack.
A 4-time felon, Lockett was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman
and watching as 2 accomplices buried her alive in 1999. Neiman and a friend had
interrupted the men as they robbed a home.
Oklahoma was using a new lethal drug combination for the 1st time. It now uses
midazolam as 1 of the drugs - the same drug that Florida uses in its
executions.
Florida uses a 3-drug cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium
chloride to knock out, paralyze and stop the heart of a prisoner.
In September, Corrections Secretary Mike Crews wrote to Florida Gov. Rick
Scott, saying he had reviewed the state's lethal injection procedure and found
it "compatible with evolving standards of decency."
(source: Tampa Bay Online)
********************
Should Florida kill the death penalty?
The death penalty should be executed.
That has to be the conclusion after the latest botched execution, this one in
Oklahoma. The murder convict, Clayton Lockett, had one of his veins explode
while the lethal cocktail was being administered. Lockhart went into a writing,
gasping fit.
And the drugs didn't kill him. He died of a heart attack after half an hour.
No doubt, Lockett was an awful man.
But do we really want more botched executions? And in Florida - which leads the
nation in death row exonerations - do we really want to risk executing an
innocent person?
Life in prison without a chance for parole is a fitting punishment. Get rid of
executions, once and for all.
(source: Opinion, Gary Stein, Sun-Sentinel)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana execution method calls for same drug used in botched Oklahoma
execution
Tuesday night, an inmate in Oklahoma reportedly writhed on a gurney and gasped
for air after being given a dosage of drugs never used before in an execution.
Convicted murderer Clayton Lockett had been declared unconscious, but woke up a
few minutes later, convulsed, tried to speak and then died of a heart attack,
witnesses said.
Three months earlier, Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire reportedly gasped, choked and
took more than 30 minutes to succumb to a previously untested mix of injected
drugs. It was the longest execution in Ohio since the state brought back the
death penalty in 1999.
Those 2 executions have something in common. Both involved a drug called
midazolam, a sedative used to render inmates unconscious and, at least
theoretically, to forestall pain. Along with another painkiller, hydromorphone,
it's the same drug Louisiana officials plan to use in executing convicted
child-killer Christopher Sepulvado.
100 mg -- Midazolam dosage in botched Oklahoma execution
10 mg --- Midazolam dosage called for in Louisiana
When it was adopted, Louisiana's execution protocol was the same as Ohio's: a
combination of 10 milligrams of midazolam and 40 milligrams of hydromorphone.
By comparison, Florida uses 500 milligrams of midazolam as part of a 3-drug
execution mix.
In light of a lawsuit following McGuire's execution, Ohio officials on Monday
announced they would increase the dosages of midazolam and hydromorphone to 50
milligrams each.
Oklahoma officials used 100 mg of midazolam in Tuesday's execution. That's how
much Virginia's protocol called for, but officials there announced Wednesday
that the state would increase its dosage from 100 milligrams to 500 milligrams.
Pam Laborde, communications director for Louisiana's Department of Public
Safety and Corrections, said the state hasn't changed its execution plan.
States coming up with new drug combinations to execute inmates
Since the manufacturers of drugs once commonly used in death chambers forbade
their use in executions, states have scrambled to find substitutes and have
experimented with dosages. It's a gamble that some death-penalty critics say is
causing cruel and unusual deaths, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
"There's no science to determining the proper amount of drugs to use for the
death penalty because this is not something we study," said Dr. David Waisel,
an associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School who has
testified in several death-penalty lawsuits. "They're are making it up as they
go along."
According to Waisel, a 10-milligram dose of midazolam - the amount used in a
Louisiana execution - does not preclude suffering even in combination with
another painkiller such as hydromorphone.
"I can say with confidence that in the McGuire execution [in Ohio], 10
milligrams of midazolam did not prevent his suffering," Waisel said.
Drug dosages will be at issue in a June hearing as death row lawyers challenge
the constitutionality of Louisiana's 2-drug protocol.
"The execution protocol proposed by the State of Louisiana, which provides for
the use of an experimental drug combination - midazolam and hydromorphone - is
woefully inadequate," Mercedes Montagnes, an attorney for Sepulvado, told The
Lens.
'Reckless experimentation with untested drug combinations will lead to
nightmarish results, as the botched executions of Dennis McGuire in Ohio and
Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma have recently demonstrated," Montagnes said. "The
secretive and inadequate protocol proposed by the state presents an
unacceptable risk that executions in Louisiana will be slow and torturous."
Dosages not tailored to each inmate
In the medical field, midazolam is used to induce sleepiness and relieve
anxiety, according to a report issued by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation
and Correction.
Waisel has previously said that an improper administration of drugs can cause
"air hunger" - a suffocation-like experience that he calls a "horrible
feeling."
Part of the problem, according to Waisel, is that states have created protocols
that call for a "1 size fits all" approach using a set amount of midazolam,
regardless of the inmate's size, weight, or medical history.
By contrast, in a hospital setting it's standard to take those factors into
account before administering a drug such as midazolam because it may affect
individuals differently, Waisel said.
The drug's warnings call for "individualization of dosage" and list negative
effects, especially in combination with other drugs. Those effects include
hypoventilation, airway obstruction and apnea, conditions that "can lead to
hypoxia and/or cardiac arrest unless effective countermeasures are taken
immediately."
Midazolam dosage by state
Louisiana----10 mg
Ohio----------50 mg (increased from 10 mg)
Oklahoma----100 mg
Florida--------500 mg
Virginia-------500 mg (increased from 100 mg)
Florida uses 50 times more midazolam than Louisiana to execute prisoners
In October, William Happ became the 1st condemned inmate to be injected with
midazolam. Reportedly, he blinked repeatedly, shook his head back and forth and
took 14 minutes to die.
In March, the Florida Supreme Court found the protocol constitutional, based on
testimony from Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, a professor and dean at Auburn
University's Harrison School of Pharmacy. Evans said an inmate would no longer
feel anything after an initial dosage of 250 milligrams, 1/2 the amount
specified in the Florida protocol.
According to a Florida Supreme Court ruling, Evans found that a high dosage of
midazolam would have a very significant effect on the central nervous system,
and the recipient of the drug would "almost immediately lose consciousness and
not be able to feel pain."
Though the Ohio protocol called for administering 10 milligrams of midazolam to
McGuire, Waisel has testified that someone of McGuire's weight - 250 pounds -
would need at least 29 milligrams of midazolam to cause unconsciousness.
Although witnesses say otherwise, a report on McGuire's death by the Ohio
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction found that he did not suffer. "He
did not experience pain, distress or air hunger after the drugs were
administered or when the bodily movements and sounds occurred," the report
reads.
In that same report, however, officials said they intended to increase the drug
dosages anyway.
Questions about Oklahoma execution
It's not clear what went wrong during Oklahoma's execution.
According to prison officials, Lockett's vein line ruptured after he was given
the midazolam as a sedative. This happened while the other 2 drugs - the
paralytic vecuronium bromide and the heart-stopper potassium chloride - were
flowing into his body.
Even though Lockett was declared unconscious after being given midazolam, he
jerked and spoke after the other 2 drugs were administered. Oklahoma officials
conceded that the combination of drugs therefore didn't have the intended
effect.
According to an article in The Atlantic, the theory that the vein line ruptured
is "dubious." Lockett's lawyers have also questioned the effectiveness of
midazolam.
A day after the botched execution, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she has
ordered a review of death chamber protocols.
"The State's protocol fails to ensure that the execution team will be trained
to properly administer the lethal injection drugs or manage any possible
paradoxical or negative side effects," Montagnes said.
Even if midazolam is effective, Sepulvado's lawyers have questioned how the
drug is injected in Louisiana executions. They contend that the Department of
Corrections staff lacks the expertise to administer the drug properly because
they're not doctors. That's likely, they argue, to cause their client to suffer
the way Lockett did.
(source: thelensnola.org)
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