Andrew Cohen posts, "How Oklahoma's Botched Execution Affects the Death-Penalty Debate," at the Atlantic.
Officials in Oklahoma had many reasons to suspect there would be problems with the execution of death-row inmate Clayton Lockett last night. They were using an untested mix of lethal drugs, never previously used in that dosage combination, obtained through secret means, which precluded the possibility of oversight from attorneys or medical officials on the quality of the drugs. They were warned by medical experts, and asked by defense attorneys, to open up the process to review—by the courts, by doctors, by some members of the public. Yet they refused.
Although officials in other states have also denied requests for transparency about lethal injection protocols, Oklahoma's legal conflicts on the issue have been particularly intense. When the state supreme court early last week sought to halt the process, state lawmakers quickly moved to try to impeach the justices. And the governor, Mary Fallin, issued an order decreeing that she would not abide by the judicial ruling of her state's highest court.
National Journal posts, "The ‘Recipe for Failure’ That Led To Oklahoma’s Botched Execution," by Dustin Volz.
A battle of political wills over Oklahoma's secretive lethal-injection protocol turned into a gruesome scene of macabre theater Tuesday evening, as the state botched the execution of one inmate and halted that of another scheduled later in the night.
The mishandling reflects the extraordinary and surreptitious lengths a handful of active death-penalty states are now willing to go to in order to continue their executions, capital-punishment opponents say, and represents just the latest episode in a string of disturbing events on Oklahoma's death row in recent months.
Moreover, Oklahoma's ongoing morass is a symptom of a national death-penalty system in crisis, a system that is finding it increasingly difficult to procure the drugs necessary to carry out death sentences amid boycotts from European manufacturers and reticence from licensed physicians.
"Clayton Lockett's Botched Execution Adds Credibility to Court Fight Over Drug Secrecy," by Sam Kleiner for the New Republic.
Oklahoma, like many other states that execute prisoners by lethal injection, has been intensely secretive about the drugs it uses. In 2011, Hospira, the only American company that made thiopental—a barbiturate anesthetic once used as the first of three drugs in a lethal injection—halted production after European officials threatened the company with an embargo. From there, states have shifted toward new, secret sources for drugs. Claiming they wanted to shield suppliers from threats, states across the country passed legislation that would maintain the secrecy of where the drugs came from. Oklahoma even bought the drugs used in Lockett's execution with cash to ensure that the transaction would be hard to detect.
"Lethal injections: A history of bungled executions," by Terrence McCoy at the Washington Post. There is an excellent infographic at the link.
The stories are sometimes grotesque. In Texas, an “obviously frightened and somewhat nervous” man had to help his executioner find the best vein to administer his lethal injection. In Illinois, another man suffered “excruciating pain” because of a bad tube, which had been inserted going the wrong way — toward the fingers, not the heart. In 1988, a syringe popped out of another man’s arm, “spraying” fluid at execution witnesses.
One man died screaming, “They butchered me!”
Tuesday night, one more botched execution by lethal injection occurred. Clayton Lockett, according to the Associated Press, “began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow,” approximately 10 minutes after an executioner pumped into him a clandestinely-procured lethal injection. The state initially blamed the problem on the 38-year-old’s veins, claiming there had been a rupture. In the end, he died of a heart attack.
Earlier coverage of Oklahoma's botched execution begins at the link.
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