Killer deservedly dead in end, Oklahomans say

McALESTER, Okla. - Geneva Miller was a bit annoyed as she dug into an egg salad sandwich at the Heavenly Delights bakery, where wooden signs line the walls bearing affirmations of food and family.

She can’t believe that her state, with its strong support for capital punishment, is being pilloried across the nation because of one botched execution.

“We’re just crazy about how everybody thinks Oklahoma is bad for supporting the death penalty,” Miller said. “We just don’t understand how they could think otherwise - that it wouldn’t be right.”

New details continued to spill out last week about the fumbled execution of inmate Clayton Lockett, 38, who died of an apparent heart attack Tuesday after authorities halted a lethal injection that caused him to convulse and a vein to burst.

The case prompted state officials to order a review of the way executions are carried out and has revived a national debate over whether the death penalty is inhumane. But for Miller and many other Oklahomans, Lockett - who shot and ordered the live burial of a teenager - got exactly what he deserved.

“It’s like the Lord said: You reap what you sow,” said F.W. Sexton, who had just finished eating at a diner in Checotah.

President Barack Obama, who supports the death penalty for heinous crimes, said Friday that the Oklahoma case was “extremely troubling” and should prompt a re-examination of the way executions are carried out.

There are “significant questions about how the death penalty is being applied” around the country, he said. “And this situation in Oklahoma, I think, just highlights some of the - the significant problems there.”

In McAlester, Checotah and other towns in eastern Oklahoma, there is some discomfort about how the execution played out, and many agree that changes should be made to the system. But there is little argument about the final outcome for Lockett.

Lockett was convicted of murder and other charges, including rape, in 2000 after he and two accomplices attacked two young women, one of whom Lockett shot twice. Lockett then ordered his accomplices to bury the 19-yearold shooting victim alive, witnesses said.

Capital punishment is broadly popular in Oklahoma, where voters chose Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney by a 2-to-1 margin over Obama in 2012 and where Gov. Mary Fallin and other Republicans dominate state government.

Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, said there will “definitely be litigation” in the aftermath of Lockett’s death.

He added that regardless of how popular capital punishment remains in the state, Lockett’s death has sparked concerns among proponents about how the process is carried out. “This brings up the question, ‘Is there a humane way to deliberately take the life of a person?’” he said.

Aaron Totani has wrestled with such questions since Lockett’s death. The massage therapist from McAlester said he is a proponent of capital punishment and believes that prisons should bring back chain gangs.

But Totani voiced concern about the bungled execution and how Lockett may have been treated beforehand. Officials said a stun gun was used on Lockett, and he refused to take food in the hours before his death.

Richard Coleman, a retired police officer from Tulsa, said he supports the death penalty for heinous crimes.

He has met with prisoners and taken teens to the prison as part of a “scared straight” program. The students saw“Sparky,” the disabled electric chair, in a museum on the property.

But Coleman said his decades in law enforcement have led him to believe that the state is too concerned with locking people up and not enough with rehabilitation. And though he thinks lethal injection is the most humane way to kill someone, the problems with it are troubling, he said.

“Oklahoma has a bad enough reputation. We don’t need this,” he said. “People think we’re rednecks and everything. Let’s get this right.”

Front Section, Pages 3 on 05/04/2014

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