Oklahoma Botches Execution of Clayton Lockett

On April 29, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack approx­i­mate­ly 40 min­utes after the state began admin­is­ter­ing a new lethal injection protocol. 

Lockett received an injec­tion of mida­zo­lam, the first drug in a three-drug pro­to­col, at 6:23 pm. At 6:33, Lockett was declared uncon­scious, but about three min­utes lat­er, wit­ness­es said he began to nod, mum­ble, and writhe on the gur­ney. Some wit­ness­es described his move­ments as a seizure. At 7:06, Lockett died of a mas­sive heart attack. 

Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections said, ​“The direc­tor did say that it appears that a vein blew up or explod­ed, it col­lapsed, and the drugs were not get­ting into the sys­tem like they were supposed to.” 

Gov. Mary Fallin stayed the exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner, which was sched­uled to begin just two hours after Lockett’s. She said, ​“I have asked the Department of Corrections to con­duct a full review of Oklahoma’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures to deter­mine what hap­pened and why dur­ing this evening’s exe­cu­tion of Clayton Derrell Lockett.” 

Deborah Denno, a lethal injec­tion expert and law pro­fes­sor at Fordham Law School, said, ​“This is one of the worst botch­es that we’ve had. All of this was pre­dictable and fore­see­able. How many times does this have to take place? … We have all the evi­dence we need to show this is a high­ly prob­lem­at­ic and poten­tial­ly unconstitutional procedure.”