Twenty-one Oklahoma death row inmates, includ­ing three with upcom­ing exe­cu­tion dates, have filed suit against the state of Oklahoma chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. At a hear­ing in the case on September 18, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot urged the state to stay the exe­cu­tions, which are sched­uled for November and December, say­ing, ​“It does not seem real­is­tic to me that the steps that need to be tak­en can hard­ly be com­plet­ed between now and then.” The inmates have asked that the state be pre­vent­ed from exe­cut­ing them ​“using the drugs and pro­ce­dures employed in the attempt to exe­cute Clayton Lockett, or sim­i­lar­ly untried, untest­ed and unsound drugs and pro­ce­dures.” The state is cur­rent­ly revis­ing its pro­to­col, but the direc­tor of the Department of Corrections has said he will need time to train his staff on the new pro­to­col. Patti Ghezzi, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the death row inmates, told the judge that the inmates seek a find­ing that Lockett’s exe­cu­tion vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment. ​“We do not want our plain­tiffs to suf­fer the cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment that Clayton Lockett suf­fered,” Ghezzi said.

(Z. Branstetter, ​“Federal judge urges state to delay exe­cu­tions,” Tulsa World, September 19, 2014). See Lethal Injection and Upcoming Executions.

Citation Guide