botched execution in oklahoma...

gimmesometruth27

seriously, wtf is up with this?? how do you botch something like this? the man was conscious and talking even after he was declared unconscious, and he clearly suffered and died of a heart attack. then he was rushed to the hospital to be revived so they can kill him at a later date. there needs to be a moratorium on all executions until they can get this stuff figured out..

Oklahoma Botches Clayton Lockett's Execution

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/oklahoma-clayton-lockett-execution_n_5236297.html

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — A botched execution using a disputed new drug combination left an Oklahoma inmate writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney on Tuesday, leading prison officials to halt the proceedings before the inmate's eventual death from a heart attack.

Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of the state's new three-drug combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.

The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state's top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings, although it didn't save Lockett.

"It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched," said Lockett's attorney, David Autry.

"They should have anticipated possible problems with an untried execution protocol. Obviously the whole thing was gummed up and botched from beginning to end. Halting the execution obviously did Lockett no good," Autry said.

Republican Gov. Mary Fallin ordered a 14-day stay of execution for another inmate who was scheduled to die two hours after Lockett, Charles Warner. She also ordered 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."

Lockett's botched execution is sure to fuel the debate over the death penalty in the U.S., where several states have had to scramble to find new sources of execution drugs because drugmakers that oppose capital punishment — many based in Europe — stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.

Several states have gone to court to shield the identities of the new sources of their execution drugs. Missouri and Texas, like Oklahoma, have both refused to reveal their sources, but both of those states have already successfully carried out executions with their new supplies.

States have been scrambling for drugs after drugmakers — many based in Europe with longtime opposition to the death penalty — stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.

Robert Patton, the director of the Department of Corrections, halted Lockett's execution about 20 minutes after the first drug was administered, saying later there had been vein failure.

The execution began at 6:23 p.m. when officials began administering the first drug, and a doctor declared Lockett to be unconscious at 6:33 p.m.

About three minutes later, though, Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow. After about three minutes, a doctor lifted the sheet that was covering Lockett to examine the injection site.

"There was some concern at that time that the drugs were not having that (desired) effect, and the doctor observed the line at that time and determined the line had blown," Patton said at a news conference afterward, referring to Lockett's vein rupturing.

After that, an official who was inside the death chamber lowered the blinds, preventing those in the viewing room from seeing what was happening.

Patton then made a series of phone calls before calling a halt to the execution.

"After conferring with the warden, and unknown how much drugs went into him, it was my decision at that time to stop the execution," Patton told reporters.

Autry questioned the amount of the sedative midazolam that was given to Lockett, saying he thought that the 100 milligrams called for in the state's execution protocol was "an overdose quantity." He also was skeptical of the department's determination that Lockett's vein failed.

"I'm not a medical professional, but Mr. Lockett was not someone who had compromised veins. He was in very good shape. He had large arms and very prominent veins," Autry said.

It was the first time Oklahoma administered midazolam as the first drug in its execution drug combination, but other states have used it. Florida administers 500 milligrams of midazolam as part of its three-drug combination.

A four-time felon, Lockett, 38, was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in rural Kay County in 1999 after Neiman and a friend arrived at a home the men were robbing.

Warner had been scheduled to be put to death two hours later in the same room and on the same gurney. The 46-year-old was convicted of raping and killing his roommate's 11-month-old daughter in 1997. He has maintained his innocence.

Lockett and Warner had sued the state for refusing to disclose details about the execution drugs, including where Oklahoma obtained them.

The case, filed as a civil matter, placed Oklahoma's two highest courts at odds and prompted calls for the impeachment of state Supreme Court justices after the court last week issued a rare stay of execution. The high court later dissolved its stay and dismissed the inmates' claim that they were entitled to know the source of the drugs.

By then, Gov. Mary Fallin had weighed into the matter by issuing a stay of execution of her own — a one-week delay in Lockett's execution that resulted in both men being scheduled to die on the same day.

gimmesometruth27

Reporter Tweets Chilling Details On Botched Execution In Oklahoma

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/oklahoma-execution-tweets_n_5236704.html

The disturbing details of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett's bungled execution on Tuesday were tweeted in rapid fire by an Associated Press reporter.

Bailey Elise McBride tweeted about the failed lethal injection process that ruptured Lockett's vein. Lockett later died of a heart attack.

McBride didn't tweet live from the execution chamber but recounted Lockett's agony and the surrounding events afterward.

Her tweets first ominously questioned why the execution was taking so long and culminated later with details as Department of Corrections officials explained what went wrong.

A selection of McBride's tweets are below:

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Last man executed in Okla., Kenneth Hogan, was pronounced dead after 13 minutes. We're now at 47 minutes and counting...
6:47 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Still no word on cause of delay in OK execution of Clayton Lockett. It was scheduled to start more than an hour ago. #deathpenalty
7:07 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

6:23 p.m. execution started, stopped when blinds were lowered at 6:39 p.m.
7:12 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Prison officials said they will try to get Lockett to hospital to resuscitate him.
7:13 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

He was conscious and blinking, licking his lips even after the process began. He then began to seize.
7:13 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

At 6:33 the doctor said Lockett was unconscious and then at 6:34 Lockett began to nod, mumble move body.
7:15 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Checking to see the status of Lockett and whether he is alive or dead or in transport to the hospital. Warner's execution has been stayed.
7:16 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

7:06 inmate Clayton Lockett suffered heart attack and died.
7:24 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Lockett's vein blew during the execution preventing the chemicals from effectively entering his body.
7:25 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

You aren't allowed to bring a pen, much less a cell phone into an execution. That is why all reporters are just now reporting what happened.
8:55 PM - 29 Apr 2014

Bailey Elise McBride @baileyelise

Live tweeting an execution seems unnecessary and kind of sick to me. After what happened, I felt like it was important for people to know.
8:56 PM - 29 Apr 2014

brianlux

Insanity rules this kind of thing. Make The Green Mile look like a sit com. Good gawd.

The Waiting Trophy Man

He shot a 19 year old woman with a sawed off shotgun and then watched as 2 accomplices buried her alive. She happened to walk in on him as he was robbing the house. Who cares what happened to him on the gurney. He did it to himself.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

The guy who raped and killed an 11 month old was spared his execution that was scheduled afterwards given the drug wasn't working as expected.

wolfamongwolves

I'm going to nip the apologist arguments in the bud here, because they miss or deliberately distort the point: I am just as horrified by the crimes as you. I do not excuse those who commit them. I am not taking their side. I am no less horrified than you that one guy shot a woman and watched her buried alive, no less disgusted that another raped and killed an infant. But that does not mean that my disgust and horror gives me or anyone else - individual or state - the right to kill. There are bad, violent, dangerous and psychotic people in the world. That's a fact. But that does not give us any right to kill them - however much you might want that right, you or nobody else has it or can claim it.

Just like you, I have every sympathy for the families of the victims and the pain that they are going through and will never get over, and I fully believe, just like you, that they deserve true justice. But to try to pretend that this eminently unnecessary and criminally incompetent punishment is justice is a bad joke. To call this justice is to either not know - or to not care - what real, meaningful, responsible justice is.

To those who have said and will say "he got what he deserved": I get why you feel like that, I absolutely do. But that's just vengeance - it's not justice in any meaningful sense. And for a justice system to behave like that, to kill people on that motivation - regardless of how terrible their crimes - is a justice system that has abused its duty and responsibility, a system that has made a mockery of the justice it's supposed to uphold, a dysfunctional system that's not fit for purpose.

That is certainly the case here, where it was admitted in advance that the drugs may not work as planned, but they unnecessarily went ahead anyway. In my opinion, anyone who sanctioned this knowing what they knew - from wardens to judges - at the very least should be tried for criminal negligence. But knowing what I know about the prejudicial, wretchedly inept farce that is the US capital system, I know better than to expect anything that remotely resembles actual justice to emerge from it.

The reason lethal injection is used is because other methods of killing prisoners were deemed to be "cruel and unusual punishment", in violation of the 8th Amendment. The fact that this execution was carried out in full explicit knowledge that it may very well result in a drawn-out and torturous death illustrates the depth of the empty cynical lip-service that is paid to the 8th Amendment, and to real justice.

This was clearly "cruel and unusual punishment". The apologists will say "It's no worse than what he did to them." True: but that doesn't in any way make it right, permissible, just or legal. You mightn't feel any sympathy for his suffering - fine. I understand why you wouldn't. But that still doesn't make this one iota more justifiable or just. Understand this: it's not sympathy for him that makes it wrong to kill him. It's that unnecessary killing of anyone, no matter how detestable, is wrong. It is just as wrong for us to kill as it is for him to kill, because unnecessary killing is - in and of itself and without qualification - wrong. Just because it's wrong to kill good people doesn't make it right to kill bad people.

I don't expect it for a long time, but the US badly needs to grow out of its backwards Dark Ages mentality on this issue and abandon this archaic, hopelessly ineffectual and profoundly unjust practice. It's long past time it caught up with the rest of the developed world - countries that without the death penalty generally have far more reliable and effective justice systems than the US.

But as long as it clings to the self-defeating hypocritical idiocy that it is right to kill people who kill people to show them that killing people is wrong, and to the ridiculous fallacy that because it's wrong to kill good people it's right to kill bad people, then any real justice for the families or for society will always be impossible. And as long as we justify killing people on the grounds of how much their crimes horrify us, we will always make the fatal mistake of thinking vengeance is the same as justice instead of a self-serving bastardisation of justice.

BLACK35

don't feel sorry for him, what goes around comes around. Glad he suffered

Jason P

I find it hard to believe that we are not good at killing a person. Why wouldn't they first administer a knock out drug? After that you could have a donkey kick him in the head and it would be done and done.

callen

Wolf, Nice post.

callen

BLACK35 said:

don't feel sorry for him, what goes around comes around. Glad he suffered

Great. Eye for an eye. We are no better than the perpetrators.

vant0037

Wasn't this the same case where the inmate's lawyer sought a stay of execution to seek the name and source of the drug so they could determine what effects etc it would have before death but we're denied? If so, that's a really really weird ending.

JimmyV

The problem with the death penalty has always been with application. It is applied too often, it is applied in cases where there is some doubt, and now the method used to carry out the sentence is flawed. I'm not sure a death penalty should be a painless penalty, but I do believe the instrument used to punish the convicted should work properly.

The Waiting Trophy Man

callen said:

Wolf, Nice post.

Notice he never mentions what true justice would be? All he said was it's not justice, it's vengeance, to kill a bad person for killing a good person. So what is true justice then?

gimmesometruth27

JimmyV said:

The problem with the death penalty has always been with application. It is applied too often, it is applied in cases where there is some doubt, and now the method used to carry out the sentence is flawed. I'm not sure a death penalty should be a painless penalty, but I do believe the instrument used to punish the convicted should work properly.

exactly. this was an experiment. they did not know what would happen. if you are going to execute someone please don't botch it. make sure it is going to work as stated/expected.

this was a cruel and unusual punishment.

chadwick

"Lockett, 38, was convicted of first-degree murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery for a 1999 crime spree with two co-defendants. He was found to have shot teen-ager Stephanie Nieman and burying her alive in a shallow grave where she eventually died." - http://news.yahoo.com/oklahoma-execute-two-convicts-ending-court-case-drugs-120244142.html


suffering... he knows all about making someone suffer

fuck this guy & his dumb ass pals

Thirty Bills Unpaid

gimmesometruth27 said:

JimmyV said:

The problem with the death penalty has always been with application. It is applied too often, it is applied in cases where there is some doubt, and now the method used to carry out the sentence is flawed. I'm not sure a death penalty should be a painless penalty, but I do believe the instrument used to punish the convicted should work properly.

exactly. this was an experiment. they did not know what would happen. if you are going to execute someone please don't botch it. make sure it is going to work as stated/expected.

this was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Agreed. It's hard to believe in this day and age that an execution could go so badly. This is incompetence of the highest order.

chadwick

they shoulda blew their brains out in 1999

chadwick

'cruel & unusual' was this asshole's name

callen

The Waiting Trophy Man said:

callen said:

Wolf, Nice post.

Notice he never mentions what true justice would be? All he said was it's not justice, it's vengeance, to kill a bad person for killing a good person. So what is true justice then?

Justice? We're going to stoop to killers level to seek justice?!?!? Easy, lock them up for life. Make them press license plates.

Will never again kill innocent person.
We are no longer barbarians
We don't say to society that killing is a means to an end.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

The Waiting Trophy Man said:

callen said:

Wolf, Nice post.

Notice he never mentions what true justice would be? All he said was it's not justice, it's vengeance, to kill a bad person for killing a good person. So what is true justice then?

Your question lies at the root of the death penalty debate.

For some, in this case those most directly impacted by the rape, sodomy, shooting and live burial... justice is what was levied. Steve and Susie Neiman asked jurors to give Lockett the death penalty for taking the life of their only child, who had graduated from Perry High School two weeks before her death.


They wrote: "We were left with an empty home full of memories and the deafening silence of the lack of life within its walls. ... We feel that the only thing left to do is let Clayton Lockett serve out the sentence of death that a jury sentenced him to. Anything less is a travesty of justice."

Ironically, Bornt (one of the survivors) wrote a letter Feb. 7 stating: "Clayton being put to death by lethal injection is almost too easy of a way to die after what he did to us. ... He will just be strapped to the table and will go to sleep and his heart will stop beating."


http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/death-looms-for-clayton-lockett-years-after-killing-oklahoma-teen/article_e459564b-5c60-5145-a1ce-bbd17a14417b.html

gimmesometruth27

for fucks sakes, we can transplant hearts and lungs and kidneys and other organs to save lives, yet we can't find a way to painlessly end a life?

this is about revenge and not justice, and that is where the problem with this debate lies.