Whether convicted felon, Clayton Lockett, deserved death is not up for debate. He was convicted of shooting Stephanie Neiman, 19, with a sawed off shotgun and then watching as she was buried alive. Neiman walked in on the four time felon as he was robbing a house in 1999. What is at issue is whether or not his death by lethal injection was “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is unconstitutional.
According to witnesses in the viewing chamber, Lockett writhed in agony and gasped for breath as the chemicals entered his system. The scene was so disturbing that prison authorities closed the viewing blinds during the process. This botched procedure raises the point of where the drugs for execution came from and the level of pain a person endures as he or she is executed. Prisoners in some states have successfully sued and had their execution halted because the state would not reveal the source of the execution drug mixtures given to inmates. In Lockett’s execution, the drugs used were the sedative midazolam, then a paralytic drug and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart. It was the first time that Oklahoma used the midazolam in an execution and as the second and third drugs were being administered it was noticed something was wrong.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, when notified of the botched execution, ordered a 14 day stay of execution for another inmate named Charles Warner. Warner was scheduled for execution later that evening after Lockett. Fallin also ordered a “full review of Oklahoma’s execution procedures to determine what happened and why during this evening’s execution.” Both Lockett and Warner had unsuccessfully sued the state to reveal the supplier of the execution drugs in an attempt to stop their execution. The lawsuit went to the state Supreme Court which at first issued a stay of execution and latter dismissed inmates claim that they were entitled to know the source of the drugs. The court fight and delay caused both men’s executions to be scheduled for the same day.
