By Phil Riske, managing editor
After reading about the April 29 botched execution of Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma, I wondered if the torture he was not sentenced to was an isolated case.
Despite prolonged litigation and numerous warnings from defense attorneys about the dangers of using an experimental drug protocol (including a paralytic), Oklahoma went ahead and scheduled the execution, the plans for the which were cloaked in secrecy, with the state refusing to release information about the source and efficacy of the lethal drugs, making it impossible to accurately predict the effects of the combination of drugs.
Nonetheless, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallon pressured the courts to permit the execution, a bill was introduced in the Oklahoma House of Representatives to impeach the justices who had voted to stay the execution, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court permitted the executions to go forward.
Two drugs used were known to cause excruciating pain if the recipient was conscious. Indeed, Lockett was not unconscious. Three minutes after the latter two drugs were injected, “Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.” Officials then lowered the blinds to prohibit witnesses from seeing what was going on, and 15 minutes later the witnesses were ordered to leave the room.
Lockett died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the execution began.
This was not an isolated case.
Since 1982, reports the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 44 other confirmed botched executions, 32 of them by lethal injection.
You would think an American society, where miracle life-saving procedures happen daily, could prevent cruel and unusual punishment of the even the worst people in the world, just as the law calls for.
