President Obama has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to review the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in the U.S. fol­low­ing the failed exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on April 29. The President not­ed con­cerns about inno­cence and racial bias: ​“In the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in this coun­try, we have seen sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems — racial bias, uneven appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, you know, sit­u­a­tions in which there were indi­vid­u­als on death row who lat­er on were dis­cov­ered to have been inno­cent because of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence. And all these, I think, do raise sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about how the death penal­ty is being applied.” The Department of Justice was already review­ing fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols. Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said, ​“At the president’s direc­tion, the depart­ment will expand this review to include a sur­vey of state-lev­el pro­to­cols and relat­ed pol­i­cy issues.” The President called the events in Oklahoma, in which the inmate regained con­scious­ness and apprar­ent­ly suf­fered before dying of a heart attack, ​“deeply disturbing.”

(P. Baker, ​“Obama Orders Policy Review on Executions,” New York Times, May 2, 2014). See New Voices and Lethal Injection.

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