20 minutes after the administration of a three-drug cocktail began, Clayton Lockett was writhing on the gurney, putting a halt to his execution; he died later of a heart attack
The Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was halted 20 minutes after the administration of a three-drug cocktail began. The execution began at 6:23 p.m. Tuesday. Ten minutes later a doctor declared Lockett to be unconscious. But three minutes after that, Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.
A doctor determined that Lockett’s vein had ruptured. After a series of phone calls by Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton, the execution was halted some 20 minutes after it began. Later, Patton announced that Lockett had died of a heart attack at 7:06 p.m. while he was still in the execution chamber.
Charles Warner had been scheduled for execution two hours after Lockett’s. Patton postponed his execution for 14 days.
The botched execution is bound to get the death penalty abolitionists all exercised. You can bet there will be a frenzy of appeals on behalf of Warner and all the death row inmates in other states that are awaiting execution with drugs supplied by compounding pharmacies. And look for Lockett’s family to file a hefty lawsuit against the State of Oklahoma.
My unsolicited advise to Oklahoma is to switch to pentobarbital, the single-dose execution drug that is being used without any problems by its neighboring state of Texas.
What is so sad here is that a lot of people are more concerned about Lockett’s brief suffering than the prolonged suffering of the young woman he so brutally raped and murdered.
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