Botched execution of Clayton Lockett could lead to return of gas chamber in Oklahoma

[poledriver]

Botched execution of Clayton Lockett could lead to return of gas chamber in Oklahoma

Lethal injections are on hold, and that means the gas chamber could return. Source: AP

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A US state is considering bringing back the gas chamber after the 43-minute-long botched execution of a convicted murderer and rapist last year.
Politicians in Oklahoma have given their preliminary approval to execute prisoners by nitrogen hypoxia, which is thought to be the most humane form of capital punishment.
Republican Mike Christian, who wrote the bill that could lead to the changes, described death by toxic gas as a “euphoric feeling”.
Oklahoma would become the first US state to bring back the gas chamber after it was removed in favour of lethal injection decades ago. If successful, Clayton Lockett’s prolonged execution will have been the catalyst.

Restraints used to hold down inmates during executions by lethal injection. Source: Supplied
Clayton Lockett died after 43 minutes on a bed in an Oklahoman prison. Source: AP

‘HE WAS CONSCIOUS AND BLINKING, LICKING HIS LIPS’

The Senate Judiciary Committee in Oklahoma voted 9-0 to authorise death by nitrogen hypoxia as a backup method if drugs administered during lethal injection become unavailable pending a US Supreme Court inquiry.
The court is reviewing the lethal injection method after Lockett died from cardiac arrest, 43 minutes into an execution that should’ve been immediate.
Lockett, 38, was convicted of kidnapping, beating, raping, shooting and burying alive a 19-year-old woman and sentenced to death. His execution was supposed to be simple but turned into a nightmare for the inmate, those administering the drugs and the state’s politicians.

At 6.23pm on April 29, 2014, Lockett was administered with a sedative. It took 10 minutes for doctors to declare him unconscious. He wasn’t.
Doctors tried to administer three lethal drugs but 20 minutes into the execution the prisoner was still not dead. Lockett was lifting his head and writhing on the bed. The execution was called off before Lockett died at 7.06pm from a heart attack. Autopsy results showed Lockett’s vein had collapsed and the drugs had absorbed into his tissue.

Reporter Bailey Elise McBride witnessed the execution and said Lockett was “conscious and blinking, licking his lips even after the process began”. She said Lockett was unconscious at 6.33pm and “began to nod, mumble, move body” at 6.34pm.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH LETHAL INJECTION?

The execution of Lockett was controversial before it started. He and fellow prisoner Charles Warner were to be executed in the state’s first double execution in 80 years. Not only that, they were to be the first people executed using the state’s new three-drug method.

The Supreme Court inquiry is looking into whether the sedative midazolam properly renders an inmate unconscious before the second and third drugs are administered. In Lockett’s case, it clearly did not.
Officials in Oklahoma have conceded that midazolam, used in the emergency management of seizures, is not the most effective drug for sedation. The problem is that more effective drugs are unavailable.

If lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional, Oklahoma would resort to the use of the electric chair. A third option would be the firing squad. The building of a gas chamber at Oklahoma State Penitentiary would cost taxpayers $300,000 according to Huffington Post and become the second option in place of the electric chair.

Other states are considering their options, too. Tennessee passed a law last year to bring back the electric chair if lethal drugs are ruled out. Utah is considering bringing back the firing squad, as is Wyoming, passed legislation in January to do just that.
A total of 35 death row inmates were executed in seven US states in 2014, all by lethal injection.

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-...mber-in-oklahoma/story-fnh81jut-1227222489062

 

[treezy z]

They need to start using guilotines if they're going to kill people. It looks bad but it's instant death.

 

[TheRapperGoneBad]

Why not carbon monoxide poisoning? Or heroin OD? I've never understood why they have to make it so damn complicated.

Because complicated equals humane right, not like we are killing them in the first place or anything.

 

[David Wooderson]

Is this the bruh that got the not-so-lethal injection in his groin? The sight of that room gives me the chills.
I don't like killers anymore than anyone else, but the lethal injection is cruel and unusual.
Why can't they have a firing squad? Too messy?
They can't have a humane happiness in slavery room that kills the person, in a humane way, and then cleans up after itself? Its 2015 for Christ sakes!
You would think fentanly would be the quick ad easy, just give them 100mg.

 

[fatstep]

Bullet to the medulla oblongotta, instant and painless, cheap too

 

[Captain.Heroin]

There's nothing wrong with midazolam IV overdoses for euthanasia, and I'm sticking to my opinion.

Way more humane than a guillotine, firing squad, etc.

 

[David Wooderson]

There's nothing wrong with midazolam IV overdoses for euthanasia, and I'm sticking to my opinion.

Way more humane than a guillotine, firing squad, etc.

Euthanasia ok, but say you were convicted for a murder you didn't comit, you would prefer going in that room, getting restrained rather than standing and getting shot?
I'd rather theoretically face my death on my feet than get restrained and snuffed.
That room looks like it was conceived by some cia asset psychiatrist.

 

[paranoid android]

This is one reason why i hate state sponsored murder. I mean how can you fuck up a lethal injection/ I am sure if they wanted to they could use a cocktail that is abit more potent such as IV Pentobarbital mixed with Fentanyl and Propofol which would kill anybody in the right dose and at alot lower doses then you would need with a benzo as opposed to Nembutal which is much more lethal. They still use IV/IM Nembutal here in very rare cases to treat status epilepticus so i am sure they could get it or some other decent barb somewhere.

The failure of lethal injection as a more "humane" way of killing someone (as if you can kill someone in a humane way) further proves the point that people just don't want to look at the people they want condemned to die in a way that's going to make them feel pity or anything other then blind hatred for that person. The Guillotine is probably the quickest and least painful way to die but how many people these days would support the government using that as a method of execution? Not many i don't think. God forbid murder should turn the spectators off their dinner 8)

 

[sirfoxey]

How in the fucking world could you fuck up a lethal injection. H users suffering from massive withdrawls sweating and shaking can give themselves a fix and not miss or if they do realise they have and try again. It is beyond me they could have fucked it this bad.

I have to agree paranoid android, I would want to have the guillotine if I was to be executed.

I am not opposed to the death penalty when someone has been convicted and will never leave jail for the rest of their lives. It saves taxpayers a load of money executing the prisoner. That being said, I have grave concerns for the current legal process and fear that unless we can fix it that we will see innocent people executed. Until that is fixed I don't think that there should be any executions.

 

[InvisibleEye]

Utah is considering bringing back the firing squad, as is Wyoming, passed legislation in January to do just that.

This is insane...

 

[David Wooderson]

How in the fucking world could you fuck up a lethal injection.

I'm guessing not too many college educated people want to wear the black hood...

 

[pill_billy]

I mean how can you fuck up a lethal injection

they know how to do it "right" but big american pharma companies dont want their name being associated with state sponsored murder so they stopped making them chemicals and european companies arent allowed to make it so you end up with a cocktail of god knows what and they wont even tell the person their about to kill what they are giving them, which is pretty fucked up IMO...

but yea firing squad, guillotine, hell even a hanging seems more human then what they are doing now...

 

[endotropic]

^ most states prefer lethal injections to those more...hands on methods due to the psychological impact on the executioner(s). Firing squad especially since you need to keep the victim in your sight as he dies. That's also the reason for having an entire "squad" instead of just one gunner, you can walk away not knowing if you pulled the trigger that killed a man.

I'm anti-capital punishment but if we have to have it we should pick a method with lower impact on the executioner.

 

[pill_billy]

^ yea i know why they dont do it but i was just sayin its more human then giving a person a mixture of drugs that havnt been tested and they wont even tell the guy they are killing what they are giving him.... and yea im def aint-capital punishment... in theroy it makes sense but the goverment just fucks things up so much and one innocent man put to death is one too many...

people just get so worked up and shit and dont stop to think about whats actually going on... and plus when people want to call themselves christians and be all religious and shit and then turn around and say put this man to death, it just pisses me off so much how ppl pick and choose what they want to be religious about and what they let slide...

 

[Trying2Iso]

Why does the State feel like they get to kill people? How is it any more right to kill someone just because it's government-sanctioned, if someone is in a High-security prison they are no longer a threat so there is no need to off them.
And because of the mandatory appeals process, most executions cost more money in the long run than keeping that same inmate in high-security prison for the rest of his/her life. So don't say money.

 

[paranoid android]

^ most states prefer lethal injections to those more...hands on methods due to the psychological impact on the executioner(s). Firing squad especially since you need to keep the victim in your sight as he dies. That's also the reason for having an entire "squad" instead of just one gunner, you can walk away not knowing if you pulled the trigger that killed a man.

I'm anti-capital punishment but if we have to have it we should pick a method with lower impact on the executioner.

See that is another reason why i don't agree with state sanctioned murder. Why should the hangman and the spectators be allowed to kill someone in a nice bloodless way that won't give them nightmares? I don't think killing is something that should be sanitized for the benefit of the hangman. They are killing someone so why should they escape the horrors of actually killing someone?

Also i can't see the right meds to give someone a lethal injection right being that hard to get as Fentanyl, Diprivan and IV Pentobarbital (or failing that Phenobarbital) being hard to get. I think they just try and skimp on meds as much as they can.

 

[MBRC]

from what i was told. theres 1 or 2 states that still do the firing squad ? i heard this...hard to believe, it was a midwest state, montana or utah maybe...i know how can i OD myself buying rc opiates but they cant OD 1 person with opiates and benzos wtf . order buty-fent or acetyl-fent + flubromazelam = death. i mean how hard is it ? they are ordering their chems the same way we are, blackmarket. Dr.'s wont prescribe the right drugs to kill a person bc its against their hippocratic oath they take ? i read for a long time some states were buying their lethal injection chems illegally out of the back of a vetrinarian office. how can they NOT GET real drugs ? lol

 

[Erikmen]

^ most states prefer lethal injections to those more...hands on methods due to the psychological impact on the executioner(s). Firing squad especially since you need to keep the victim in your sight as he dies. That's also the reason for having an entire "squad" instead of just one gunner, you can walk away not knowing if you pulled the trigger that killed a man.

I'm anti-capital punishment but if we have to have it we should pick a method with lower impact on the executioner.

Of course. And it should definitely be in a shorter period. It seems to me like torture someone waiting years and years for the outcome.
The lethal injection would probably be the safer and most human way IMO - if an execution really has to be done.

 

[pill_billy]

i get the idea behind everyone saying just shoot them up with enough dope to make the inmate OD... but the bigger problem is that big pharma compaines do not want their names associated with the leathal injection process... so they find some small, prob republican backed, company that doesnt really give a fuck to give them some off brand not properly designed drugs to try and do the trick... thats all the more complicated the situation is... solution get the right drugs, change the method, or dont do it... not doing it would be the christian and human thing to do... so that should happen about never in this country....

 

[InterestingFACT]

There's nothing wrong with midazolam IV overdoses for euthanasia, and I'm sticking to my opinion.

Way more humane than a guillotine, firing squad, etc.

Except states have never used a midazolem OD for lethal injection. The lethal agent is potassium chloride, which is incredibly painful, and ugly too. And of course, to make things more pleasant for the voyeurs-ahem... witnesses, a muscle relaxant is administered to prevent unsightly convulsions. In the old three-drug combination, sodium thiopental was used to render the victim unconscious before administration of the lethal drug. Nevermind that the old combination caused plenty of screw-ups in its own right, we have a clear track record of midazolem failing to render the victim unconscious. We also have a clear track record of criminal incompetence on the part of the "doctors" who administer lethal injections, and a clear track record of criminal negligence on the part of the states like Oklahoma which went out of its way to avoid disclosing sources or amounts of the drugs used.

A single-drug injection is the obvious solution to this problem: If for whatever reason the drug fails, the only result is that the victim doesn't die. Not that I think the death penalty should be legal in America anyways... but if we're going to do it, we can at least do it in a semi-humane manner.