After the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett on April 29, Oklahoma offi­cials sent his body to Texas for an inde­pen­dent autop­sy. Now it appears that Texas will with­hold impor­tant infor­ma­tion revealed in the course of the autop­sy from the pub­lic at Oklahoma’s request. The autop­sy was per­formed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. Earlier, Michael Thompson, Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, said the Lockett autop­sy report would be made pub­lic. However, when a news orga­ni­za­tion request­ed the results of the autop­sy, Oklahoma object­ed. Dallas County asked Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbot to rule on releas­ing the infor­ma­tion. The attor­ney gen­er­al sided with Oklahoma’s request to keep cer­tain items secret, includ­ing the iden­ti­ties of the drug pre­par­er, doc­tors who were present at the exe­cu­tion, and oth­er mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team. Oklahoma want­ed even more infor­ma­tion to be kept secret, cit­ing pro­vi­sions of the Oklahoma Open Records Act, but Texas said oth­er infor­ma­tion gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the auto­posy, should be released.

Lockett report­ed­ly died of a heart attack short­ly after his lethal-injec­tion exe­cu­tion was called off by the state.

(C. Killman, ​“Texas to with­hold cer­tain Lockett autop­sy details after Oklahoma inter­venes,” Tulsa World, August 28, 2014). See Lethal Injection and Botched Executions.

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