Oklahoma sets review of execution

Must ensure future deaths are kink-free, governor says

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin announced Wednesday that Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson (background) would head a review of execution procedures.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin announced Wednesday that Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson (background) would head a review of execution procedures.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin named a member of her Cabinet on Wednesday to lead a review of how the state conducts executions after a botched procedure that the White House said fell short of the humane standards required.

Clayton Lockett had an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after the start of an execution in which the state was using a new drug combination for the first time. Lockett had convulsed and tried to lift his head after a doctor declared him unconscious Tuesday night, leading prison officials to call a halt to the execution.

Fallin said Wednesday that Lockett, who was convicted of shooting Stephanie Neiman, 19, and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in rural Kay County in 1999, had had his day in court.

“I believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes against their fellow men and women,” Fallin said. “However, I also believe the state needs to be certain of its protocols and its procedures for executions and that they work.”

She said “an independent review” would be effective and appropriate.

The governor said the review, to be led by state Department of Public Safety chief Michael Thompson, will focus on Lockett’s cause of death and that an independent pathologist will make that determination. The review also will look at whether the department followed the current protocol correctly and will include recommendations for future executions.

Fallin also said a stay of execution for Charles Warner, who had been scheduled to die two hours after Lockett, is in place until May 13. She said Warner’s execution will be further delayed if the review is not complete by then.

Warner’s attorney objected to the investigation being led by a member of Fallin’s Cabinet.

“I don’t consider that to be an independent investigation,” lawyer Madeline Cohen said.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt, whose office has worked to keep secret details about the execution drugs, said he intends to assign investigators to work with Thompson.

Lockett, 38, had been declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state’s new lethal-injection combination was administered Tuesday. Three minutes later, he began breathing heavily, clenching his teeth. The blinds were lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching, and the state’s top prison official later halted the proceedings.

Lockett died of a heart attack shortly thereafter, the state Department of Corrections said. Officials later blamed a ruptured vein for the problems with Lockett’s execution.

Most executions in Oklahoma, which used different fast-acting barbiturates, were completed, and the inmate declared dead, within about 10 minutes of the procedure’s start.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama believes that evidence suggests the death penalty does little to deter crime.

“But it’s also the case that we have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely,” Carney said. “Everyone would recognize this case fell short of this standard.”

Fallin declined to respond to the White House statement Wednesday.

The Oklahoma medical examiner’s office said Wednesday that it had begun the toxicology part of the autopsy to determine what drugs were in Lockett’s system. The surgical part will be conducted by an independent pathologist.

Medical examiner spokesman Amy Elliott initially said it could take two to four months to complete the toxicology report. She later said she expects the results sooner because they were sent to an independent laboratory for analysis.

Tuesday was the first time Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam as the first element in its execution-drug combination. Other states have used it before. Florida administers 500 milligrams of midazolam as part of its three drug combination. Oklahoma used 100 milligrams.

Pruitt, the attorney general, had said the lower dosage would ensure that the state maintains an adequate supply for future executions. The state had information indicating that at that dose, “you go to sleep doggone quick,” he said.

EXECUTION HISTORY

The chain of events in Oklahoma leading up to the botched execution spotlighted the escalating problems in administering lethal injections. First adopted by Oklahoma in 1977, the method has been fraught in recent years with drug shortages and a host of related problems, including other botched executions.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a 7-to-2 vote in 2008 that the most common method of lethal injection is constitutional. That was a three drug combination that used an anesthetic, a paralytic drug and a drug that stopped the heart. It was overwhelmingly the primary method of executing condemned prisoners until 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

But in 2011, Hospira, the sole manufacturer of a key lethal-injection drug, sodium thiopental, announced that it would exit the market. That led to a cascade of shortages as states began running out of that and other drugs, in large part because of the European Union’s opposition to the death penalty.

With uncertainty about getting the drugs and legal fights, some states have considered reviving options such as the firing squad (Wyoming), the gas chamber (Missouri) and the electric chair (Virginia).

Others, such as Ohio, have stuck with lethal injection but began using a combination of drugs never before used in the United States. That led to a mishap in the execution of convicted killer Dennis McGuire in January. McGuire, who admitted to raping and murdering a pregnant newlywed named Joy Stewart in 1989, struggled, gasped and choked for several minutes before he was pronounced dead.

In Oklahoma, Lockett and Warner had sued the state for refusing to disclose details about their execution drugs, saying the secrecy violated the Constitution’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. They argued that without knowing who manufactures the execution drugs, they had no way of ensuring that the drugs would work as intended.

The case placed Oklahoma’s two highest courts at odds and prompted calls for the impeachment of state Supreme Court justices after the court last week issued a rare stay of execution. The high court later dissolved its stay and dismissed the inmates’ claim that they were entitled to know the source of the lethal drugs.

After Fallin spoke Wednesday, Oklahoma state lawmakers angered by the botched execution called a briefing at the Capitol with local leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP.They planned to discuss a proposed joint resolution that would call for a year-long moratorium on executions.

“In Oklahoma’s haste to conduct a science experiment on two men behind a veil of secrecy, our state has disgraced itself before the nation and world,” Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the Oklahoma branch of the ACLU, said in a statement. “This is not about whether these two men are guilty; that is not in dispute. Rather, it comes down to whether we trust the government enough to allow it to kill its citizens, even guilty ones, in a secret process.”

Others said Oklahoma and other states that permit lethal injection need to be much more open about what drugs they used.

“Certainly no executions should occur in Oklahoma until they can justify why they’re choosing certain drugs, where they’re getting them from, who is going to be performing these executions,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. “I think it will affect other states, too, where they have proceeded with secret formulas and lack of information about how they are doing the executions. Courts are going to be more demanding lest what happened in Oklahoma happen elsewhere.”

But supporters of the death penalty said more focus should be put on victims. Dudley Sharp, a real estate investor in Houston who lobbies legislatures to retain death-penalty measures and described the practice as a “just and appropriate sanction,” said it was possible that Lockett’s physical reactions were triggered by the drugs and might not have indicated consciousness.

“Would we prefer a peaceful execution? The answer is yes,” Sharp said. But, in the context of what happened to his victim, “what Lockett went through was nothing by comparison, and we need to consider both of those.”

Another death-penalty advocate questioned the motives of those carrying out the execution.

“Quite frankly I’m not quite sure why the people that are performing the executions can’t get these things straight,” said Jan Miller, a murder victim’s mother who is president of Citizens Against Homicide, a California-based group that works with families and the criminal-justice system.

“Sometimes you wonder if they aren’t intentionally making a botched job just to get the ire up of the people who are anti-death penalty and to try to move one step further along toward no longer having a death penalty,” Miller said.

Lockett’s mother, Ladonna Hollins, in an interview with The Tulsa World, expressed distress at the bungled execution.

“He was in pain, and in our Constitution it clearly states that we should not make a man suffer like this, so I’m torn,” Hollins said. “My heart aches that he had to suffer like that. … Stephanie suffered, I’m sure, but now here’s the end result,” she said, referring to his victim. “They are both dead now. She’s not any more alive than she was the day before.”

Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press; by Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times; by Jerry Markon, Mark Berman, Lindsey Bever, Scott Wilson and Rachel Weiner of The Washington Post; and by Erik Eckholm, Motoko Rich and Michael D. Shear of The New York Times.

Reader poll

What is your opinion of capital punishment in light of the botched execution Tuesday in Oklahoma?

  • I've always been in favor of capital punishment and remain that way. 46%
  • The death penalty is wrong, and this fits the definition of "cruel and unusual punishment." 25%
  • States should revive older forms of capital punishment, such as the electric chair or firing squad. 18%
  • States should find alternate drug options for more humane executions. 7%
  • Other (please comment) 3%

127 total votes.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/01/2014

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