For death penalty advocates, Oklahoma was featuring a type of macabre double header tonight: two executions to be held within hours of each other. That objective however failed in a most disturbing possible way after the first execution of Clayton Lockett left him in obvious agony for over 25 minutes. He eventually died from a heart attack and the second execution was postponed.
Witnesses reported that Lockett could be seen kicking and lifting his head on the gurney. After sixteen minutes, the prison officials closed the blinds and barred witnesses. Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton then called a halt to the execution and issued a 14-day stay for the execution of Charles Warner. Patton described the problem as a “vein failure”
Lockett was sentenced to death for killing a woman during a home invasion burglary in 1999 while Warner (right) was sentenced to death for raping and murdering an 11-month old girl in 1997.
Notably, the execution tonight used a new combination of drugs after a shortage in lethal injection drugs arose from an international campaign. They gave Lockett the sedative midazolam which was to be followed by the muscle relaxant vecuronium bromide to stop breathing and then potassium chloride to stop the heart.
The botched execution will only magnify concerns that there remain too many unknowns about lethal injection and that it constitutes a cruel punishment.
Notably, this incident comes a day after the release of a new report showing over four percent of death row inmates are likely innocent. The calculation of one in 25 death row being innocent in the study contradicts the earlier statistical data offered by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia in a concurring opinion in 2007 when he said that the error rate was 0.027 percent “or, to put it another way, a success rate of 99.973 percent.”
The execution and the study raise two of the main objections over the death penalty: that it is cruel and that the criminal justice system still produces false convictions. However, 55 percent of people polled reportedly still support the death penalty while a substantial percentage of 39 percent now opposes it. This is clearly going to be a debate that will continue to rage, particularly after the horrific scene tonight in Oklahoma.
Source: CNN
disco,
Just the latest “error” by our infallible Justice Scalia.
@ jonathanturley I understand that. My guillotine suggestion was with respond it not being cruel though some would consider it unusual. Much better than hanging and electric chair!
Of course, while he did not come up with the idea, the guillotine was proposed by Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin as an advance in execution that was more merciful than a swordsman who often had to take two or three strikes to get the job down (the reason for the common practice of paying the executioner to give a bit extra effort).
Very good George!
Wait just a minute Jonathan, you’re deleting a post that Cal R., made an offendive reference to Muslims and P.O., now if some one makes a disparate remark about Italians or Asians, what is the policy on that? This blog is replete with some rather offensive terms.
Dr Mengele would be proud. Experimentation is the doorway to progress.
Cal R. I have deleted some posts on different threads expressing a desire to kill an officer and using some offensive terms for Muslims and police officers. I understand the passions run high but I would appreciate it if you could curtail such language in your postings. Your cooperation is appreciated.
Ever had a close friend mercilessly shot to death by a career criminal? You might feel differently. What about his victim being shot and buried alive? That wasn’t very humane! As to the death penalty, it is a state issue and every state can choose their method of execution. The guillotine is quick and supposedly painless. Sounds like a solution. It’s 100% effective!
Susie, it is a state issue but there remains a federal constitutional component on the means of execution as well as the scope of such punishment. The Supreme Court has recognized the right of states to differ in forms of execution but there remains federal review on whether such means constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
We make a mountain out of a mole hill. It was random and rare human error. We didn’t assign malice or evil when NASA blew up a Space Shuttle right before our eyes. The nurse missed the vein. We review and assure that it won’t happen again. If he wasn’t drawn and quartered, it wasn’t cruel and unusual. I’m gonna take a wild guess that it was cruel, evil and malicious when this perp brutalized and raped a defenseless 19-year-old girl and was then entertained as his two friends buried her alive.
Is this the first time Scalia has been wrong?
I kid, I kid.
He was wrong about HIMSELF earlier today! http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/antonin-scalia-error-supreme-court-dissent-epa
I saw this on ABA Journal. It was a great catch by a couple of law professors and rather embarrassing for the Court. Scalia previously told law schools that if they were not in the very top law schools, they should not hope to be one of his clerks because they are simply not the elite. So much for academic breeding theories.
Jonathan – why should Scalia be any different in his hiring practices than a top-flight law firm. My understanding is that some will not look at you if you do not come from either Harvard or Yale.
James,
Yep. All true.
“you need to lighten up some.”
More dictation of orders, bully-style, transparent despite juvenile happy emote icons.
Waterboarding remains torture. There will be no “lightening up”:on that, sorry.
James – lightening up is/was a suggestion, not a command. There is a phrase we would used when I was younger, but it probably would have gotten my banned. BTW, the fact that I do not allow others to bully me does not make me a bully.
Death Penalty Is Renounced By Blackmun
By LINDA GREENHOUSE,
Published: February 23, 1994
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/23/us/death-penalty-is-renounced-by-blackmun.html
What about sentencing an inmate to death or life. They can choose life, or at any time say, execute me. And, give them options on how to die. We would need a lot of Dr. Kevorkians. My objection to the death penalty would be handled w/ this system. I know folks will say, “The murderer didn’t give his victim a choice.” I worked for a DA, I am VERY pro victim. But, the state needs to be better than the criminals. We weren’t @ Waco and we all paid a heavy price.
Oh, I do like the Rumsfield quote!
Paul, I have gone over my post several times now and I don’t see a mention of ‘life without parole’. I would also suggest that you might look at Sweden’s criminal justice system which has an outstanding success rate in terms of recidivism. Since I live in Phoenix as you do, I am well aware of the unpopularity of my position on this issue. However, Paul, when the State murders a person (and murder is is. The death certificate reads ‘homicide’ as the cause of death) we have sunk to the level of that person executed. When we execute an innocent person, we have ourselves become murderers in the truest sense.
kraaken – you are going to have to either post a pdf of the death certificate showing murder or post a link on you claim on executions.
“the reason it is more expensive is the number of appeals available to the defendant. First through the state system, then through the federal system. The Supreme Court has opined about streamlining the appeals on the federal level. This would cut the cost.”
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to execution with the legal system you have, not the legal system you may want. Fact is that the death penalty is costlier than life in prison. It’s been that way for a long time, and there’s no realistic probability of it changing in the future. There are reasons to support the death penalty. But, saving taxpayer money is not one of them and anyone citing it as a reason for the death penalty is objectively, factually wrong.
Indeed, the only way to reduce the costs of the death penalty is to cut off appeals. We have already seen disturbing cases where claims were barred under existing rules to the concern of many about the legitimacy of convictions. I believe the moral and the accuracy issues should prevail in this debate rather than costs.
Cal,
Who decides which judges are okay and which need to go?
Paul S
I think you meant that the fair trial comes before conviction. Not after conviction. Right?
Wonkette:
“Justice Harry Blackmun who was as good, and as flawed, a human being as ever sat on the United States Supreme Court bench, was a death penalty supporter for most of his career, until he just couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take the uncertainties inherent in the system, couldn’t be responsible for the arbitrary infliction of death, couldn’t couldn’t could not.
From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored–indeed, I have struggled–along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. […] The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.
From this day forward, let us all tinker with the machinery of death no more. Please.”
Read more at http://wonkette.com/547933/there-is-nothing-funny-about-last-nights-botched-execution-in-oklahoma#bxo652wzDpO3bwCc.99
(Offers a good summary/description of the process, drugs used, etc., as well as some interesting video, IMO.)
Innocence Blog
See “The Faces of Injustice”
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Listen to Jim Dwyer Talk about New iBook Collaboration with the Innocence Project and the New York Hall of Science
Posted: April 9, 2014 3:10 pm
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Listen_to_Jim_Dwyer_Talk_about_New_iBook_Collaboration_with_the_Innocence_Project_and_the_New_York_Hall_of_Science.php
I don’t know how those who deliver this to death row inmates can actually do this job. It’s got to be a job that rife with PTSD at some point in those who do it.
Annie,
In some prisons, there are multiple levels for the drugs so that it is not clear who flipped the switch. However, my impression is that in most states, it is a single person. Many doctors refuse to be involved due to their oath to do no harm.