Stefanie Faucher
Anniston (AL) Star - A 'bloody mess' in Oklahoma
Associated Press - Attorneys Seeking to Halt Oklahoma Executions
MSNBC - The Rachel Maddow Show - ‘A bloody mess’: Warden on Oklahoma execution
MSNBC - Rachel Maddow Blog - When an execution is ‘like a horror movie’
Vice - Documents Reveal 'Bloody Mess' at Botched Oklahoma Execution of Clayton Lockett
Courthouse News Service - Report Describes Okla.'s Botched Execution
KRMG (Tulsa) - Attorneys trying to stop upcoming executions
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http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/article_f3d1c704-84bd-11e4-84e5-a3e022489325.html
Editorial: A 'bloody mess' in Oklahoma
December 15, 2014
Eight months ago, the state of Oklahoma executed convicted murderer Clayton Lockett. By doing so, it produced an ironclad example for why details of state-sponsored executions should be transparent and public.
Lockett earned the death penalty for the 1999 murder of a 19-year-old woman, whom Lockett shot and buried alive. Even the most ardent opponents of the death penalty — including this editorial board — must agree that Lockett deserved severe punishment for his crime.
Court documents released Friday night show that prison administrators and medical personnel botched Lockett’s execution far worse than previously thought. So bad was the scene inside the Oklahoma prison’s death chamber that the warden described it as “a bloody mess.”
That, apparently, is what happens when states rush executions without proper training; without deep knowledge of the drug cocktail that will be used; without an explicit backup plan should the execution process go awry; and without proper oversight of the Department of Corrections.
Oklahoma had none of that. It should make states that still subscribe to eye-for-an-eye justice think twice before they carry out their next execution. That includes Alabama, which, like Oklahoma, has changed the three-drug combination it uses to kill death-row inmates because of a shortage.
In Oklahoma, Lockett’s death was wrapped up in a toxic mix of politics, pressure and incompetence. A former general counsel for the state corrections department said the Oklahoma attorney general’s office “was under a lot of pressure” to resume executions after the drug-shortage delay. As a result, one of the drugs used, Midazolam, was selected after talking to other states’ counsels and researching the Internet.
Yes, Oklahoma selected a drug for its executions the way a mom would search the web for the best way to treat a hacky cough.
Once in the death chamber, Lockett was stuck 16 times by a paramedic and a doctor in an attempt to administer the drugs through an I.V. Documents showed the doctor used a 1.25-inch needle instead of a 2-inch or 2.25-inch needle because the correct one wasn’t available.
The shorter needle wasn’t inserted correctly and the drugs didn’t enter the inmate’s bloodstream. Lockett visibly moaned and pulled against his restraints, witnesses said. While trying to insert another needle into Lockett’s femoral vein, the doctor mistakenly punctured an artery, which caused the “bloody mess.” Amazingly, the doctor also didn’t know that no more of the three-drug cocktail remained.
It took 43 minutes for Lockett to die.
Executions are an abominable way to mete out justice. Oklahoma’s proven how wrong they can go.
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/attorneys-seeking-halt-oklahoma-executions-27619512
Attorneys Seeking to Halt Oklahoma Executions
By Sean Murphy, Dec 15, 2014
Attorneys for 21 Oklahoma death row inmates head to federal court this week hoping that behind-the-scenes details of an execution gone awry will prevent a "bloody mess" from ever happening again.
Attorneys for the state of Oklahoma say new lethal injection protocols will address the problems encountered during the April 29 execution of 38-year-old Clayton Lockett, who writhed on the gurney, clenched his teeth and mumbled before a doctor noticed a problem with an intravenous line. But the inmates argue the state is experimenting on them with new drug combinations that amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
A legal filing in the case includes accounts of Lockett's execution, including Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell's description of the scene inside the death chamber after the blinds were lowered on witnesses as "a bloody mess."
Oklahoma's first execution since Lockett's is set for Jan. 15, with three more scheduled in the following weeks. A federal judge will hold hearings starting Wednesday on the inmates' claims that the state isn't ready.
According to accounts from others in the death chamber, including execution team members, once the blinds were lowered, a doctor tried to set a second intravenous line, resulting in Lockett's blood spraying the doctor's jacket. One unidentified executioner told investigators Lockett "tried to get up" and continued straining and mumbling while prison officials scrambled to figure out what to do.
Lockett's execution ultimately was halted after prison officials consulted with the governor's office, but he died anyway 43 minutes after the first drug was administered. Witness accounts show there were no lifesaving measures given to Lockett even after the execution was halted.
The inmates' case centers on the state's use of the sedative midazolam as the first in a three-drug lethal injection procedure. Oklahoma used the drug for the first time with Lockett's execution.
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety investigated Lockett's execution and released some ? but not all ? details to the public. Items kept secret include the transcripts of witness interviews, which have been obtained by defense attorneys as part of discovery.
The agency has denied requests from various media outlets, including The Associated Press, to release the additional information.
"The best information that I can give you is that it's still being reviewed by our legal division," said department spokesman Capt. Paul Timmons, "and no decision has been made as far as what they're going to release or when they're going to release it."
The secrecy has led to criticism from civil libertarians who accuse the state of whitewashing its report.
"Selective information is misinformation," said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma. "If there were even a shred of competence in the state's ability to hold itself accountable for their actions, it's gone out the window with these recent revelations."
Last week's legal filing also includes details from an interview with former Department of Corrections general counsel Michael Oakley, who said the state selected midazolam based on conversations he had with prison officials in other states and his own online research.
Oklahoma and Florida are the only states that have used midazolam as part of a three-drug protocol, but Florida uses 500 milligrams, five times the amount Oklahoma used on Lockett. Oklahoma has since revised its protocol to match the amount Florida uses.
A spokesman for Attorney General Scott Pruitt said the state is prepared to challenge many of the claims made on behalf of the inmates.
"The filings made by plaintiffs for the death row inmates are not facts settled by the court but are instead an attempt to put the best possible spin on the plaintiffs' version of their narrative," said Pruitt spokesman Aaron Cooper.
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link to segment: on.msnbc.com/1BNTH44
‘A bloody mess’: Warden on Oklahoma execution
December 15, 204
Ziva Branstetter, enterprise editor for Tulsa World newspaper, talks with Rachel Maddow about new details revealed in the botched execution of Clayton Lockett by the state of Oklahoma of what took place after a curtain was drawn closed on witnesses.
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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-execution-horror-movie
When an execution is ‘like a horror movie’
By Steve Benen, December 15, 2014
For the most part, American support for capital punishment is conditioned on humane conditions – there’s an expectation that when U.S. officials execute an American, it will be done in a sanitary way that falls short of constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual treatment.
And yet the execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma earlier this year continues to stand out for its gut-wrenching details. In April, we learned that the state intended to kill Lockett by using a new, lethal drug combination with contents state officials did not want to disclose, from a drug manufacturer the state did not want to identify. It quickly became apparent that the method was a failure – Lockett reportedly began to writhe and gasp after he had already been declared unconscious.
A prison official at the execution reportedly stated the obvious at the time: “Something’s wrong.” Lockett eventually died that night, but of a heart attack.
Over the weekend, however, the Tulsa World reported on the extent to which the execution was even worse than the public previously realized.
When Oklahoma investigators issued a report on what went wrong with the April execution of Clayton Lockett, they downplayed and omitted disturbing details from witnesses and officials, records filed in federal court show.
During interviews with state investigators, the warden at Oklahoma State Penitentiary recalled the scene inside the execution chamber on April 29 as “a bloody mess,” according to a motion filed Friday by attorneys for death-row inmates.
Another witness said the scene “was like a horror movie” as Lockett was bucking and attempting to raise himself off the gurney when he was supposed to be unconscious and dying.
The article, to be sure, is not easy reading, but it’s an important account of an instance in which a state tried to kill one of its citizens and struggled in ways that are genuinely shocking.
Although the prison lacked the right needles and had no backup drugs, the doctor attempted another femoral IV. No one was sure why. Blood backed up into the IV line, and the paramedic told the doctor he’d hit the artery, noting the doctor seemed anxious.
“We’ve got blood everywhere,” the paramedic recalled to investigators.
It just gets worse from there.
For more background on the story, here’s Rachel’s segment from April.
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Documents Reveal 'Bloody Mess' at Botched Oklahoma Execution of Clayton Lockett
By Alice Speri, December 15, 2014
The execution of Clayton Lockett by lethal injection lasted 43 minutes and made a mess, squirting blood all over a doctor who inserted an additional needle into the inmate's groin as the drugs used to kill him failed to work.
The botched execution, which took place in April at an Oklahoma penitentiary, is described in grisly new detail in documents filed Friday as part of a civil lawsuit brought by lawyers for Charles Warner, another death row inmate scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma in January.
The lawsuit describes Lockett's botched execution — which reignited debate over the use of experimental drug cocktails in capital punishment — as "torture."
"It was a bloody mess," prison warden Anita Trammell told investigators, according to court documents.
Lockett was executed with an experimental combination of Midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. He was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the drugs were first administered, but reportedly groaned, moaned, lifted his head and shoulders, and said "man" as he lay dying. The execution was carried out behind blinds, beyond the sight of reporters and lawyers.
"I was kind of panicking," Trammell said. "Thinking oh my God. He's coming out of this. It's not working."
As the drug cocktail failed to kick in, the doctor carrying out the execution made a last-minute attempt to kill Lockett faster by inserting an intravenous line in his groin. But the needle struck an artery, squirting blood all over the doctor.
Friday's court filing includes witness testimonies and statements by doctors present at the execution. They reveal that Lockett was pricked at least 16 times as the doctor attempted to insert the IV, and that the doctor used the wrong type of needle for the job.
Lockett was "in some pain," Trammel said.
He "raised up a little bit a couple of times and the phlebotomist told him to take deep breaths, you know, kind of out loud," one witness, whose name was redacted in court documents, said.
"I said [redacted] 'You've hit the artery,'" a paramedic said, recalling his dialogue with the doctor. "'Well, it'll be alright [sic]. We'll go ahead and get the drugs' — 'No. We can't do that. It doesn't work that way' — and then, I wasn't telling him that — I mean, I wasn't trying to countermand his authority, but he was a little anxious… I don't think he realized that he hit the artery, and I remember saying, 'You've got the artery. We've got blood everywhere.'"
Oklahoma rep proposes new form of execution by nitrogen asphyxiation. Read more here.
A victim services advocate with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections who watched the execution from an overflow room said that a woman ran out of the execution chamber halfway through.
"It was like a horror movie," said Edith Shoals. "He kept trying to talk."
"These new details underscore that critical decisions were made during the IV insertion procedure—decisions which directly caused a botched lethal injection, and which occurred without any oversight from the press or public," Lee Rowland, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an email to VICE News.
"The IV insertion is an integral portion of the lethal injection proceeding, and must be carried out within the bounds of law and policy," she added. "Meaningful oversight of the death penalty requires that the public has a full and truthful picture of the process, including the insertion of the IV that provides the lethal injection."
Robert Patton, the corrections director, eventually called off the execution 33 minutes after it started — but nobody attempted to reanimate or assist Lockett.
According to the court documents, Trammell asked the doctor if it would be possible to resuscitate Lockett, to which he responded that "he would have to take Lockett to the emergency room, but someone told (the doctor) that they could not do that."
Another witness describing the same exchange said Trammell asked "if they could bring him back to life," and said he thought the doctor "said no."
Trammell later admitted to investigators that they had no contingency plans in case "something goes south" with the execution. She also said that the doctor who got Lockett's blood all over his clothes said he hoped to get "enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket."
Lockett was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 1999. He shot her and buried her while she was still alive.
Warner was originally scheduled to be killed two hours after Lockett, but officials put his and other executions on hold after the gruesome incident, pending an investigation.
Ohio just doubled down on drug cocktail that tortured a death row inmate before killing him. Read more here.
Midazolam, used for sedative purposes, has failed to work in other executions, and some medical experts have said that just increasing the dosage — as some states have proposed — is no guarantee that the drug will work. Other botched executions this year included those of Dennis McGuire, who gasped for air for 25 minutes as he was put to death in Ohio, and Joseph Wood, whose execution in Arizona lasted almost two hours.
Mike Oakley, the former general counsel for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, told the Guardian that he consulted colleagues in other states and the internet about the effectiveness of Midazolam.
"I did have a discussion with our medical director at the time and he said, 'Yeah Midazolam probably when administered will, will render sedation,'" he said. "And that's all he would say. Then, you know, I did my own research, I looked online, you know. Went past the key Wiki leaks, Wiki leaks [sic] or whatever it is, and I did find out that, when administered, Midazolam would administer, would render a person unconscious. That's what we needed… So we thought it was okay."
Lawyers for other death row inmates claim Midazolam is unreliable and that using experimental drug cocktails amounts to illegal experimentation on humans.
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http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/12/15/report-describes-okla-s-botched-execution.htm
Report Describes Okla.'s Botched Execution
By DAVID LEE, December 15, 2014
OKLAHOMA CITY (CN) - Oklahoma's execution team created a gruesome "bloody mess" trying to tap a second femoral intravenous line during the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, court records reveal.
The horrifying details of how the April 29 execution went wrong after the blinds to the death chamber were drawn were revealed Friday.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Patti Ghezzi in Oklahoma City filed an 83-page Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on behalf of four death row inmates scheduled to be executed by Oklahoma in the next three months.
The men seek a preliminary injunction to stop their executions, which they call cruel and unusual.
Plaintiff Charles Warner was scheduled to die hours after Lockett, but was spared when Gov. Mary Fallin stayed his execution and ordered an investigation of Lockett's death. Warner now is scheduled to die on Jan. 15.
An unidentified paramedic said a doctor tried to start the line in Lockett's groin but the doctor "did not know why he was trying to start another line" and that "no one ever asked him why he was starting the other line," according to the Findings.
"He hit the artery and blood started backing up into the IV line," the paramedic told state investigators. "And I told him. I said [redacted] you've hit the artery. Well, it'll be alright. We'll go ahead and get the drugs. No. We can't do that. It doesn't work that way and then I wasn't telling him that. I mean I wasn't trying to countermand his authority but he was a little anxious. I don't think he realized that he hit the artery and I remember saying you've got the artery. We've got blood everywhere."
Warden Anita Trammell told investigators there "was no plan" for the execution team running out of execution drugs. She said "blood squirted up and got all over" the doctor's jacket when he tried to insert a line into Lockett's left groin and that he said he had to "get enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket."
The Findings say "no post-stay life-saving measures were taken" after the execution was called off by Fallin, and that the team allegedly was told "not to reverse it."
The doctor "stated he would have to take Lockett to the emergency room, but someone told [the doctor] that they would not do that," according to the Findings. The doctor "said he could have started 'CPR and advance cardiac life support'" and that "there are drugs to reverse midazolam."
The paramedic echoed the doctor's statements, that he thought lifesaving measures were not used "because the purpose of being there was to provide an execution ... and we were told not to reverse it."
Warden Trammell told investigators that after the blinds were lowered, an unidentified person was checking the electrocardiogram, whom Trammell asked if he or she was "gonna call it."
The person declined, so Trammell asked the doctor, who "got pretty frustrated" with her, according to the Findings.
Lockett was convicted in 2000 of the rape and murder of Stephanie Neiman, 19. He was convicted of shooting her with a sawed-off shotgun and watching two accomplices bury her alive.
Warner was convicted in 1999 of the rape and murder of Adrianna Waller, the 11-month-old daughter of his girlfriend at the time.
Both men unsuccessfully sued the state in March, opposing the state's planned use of replacement execution drugs of unknown content from unlicensed compounding pharmacies.
Several states have resorted to such measures due to shortages of traditional execution drugs caused by anti-death penalty activists successfully asking large drug manufacturers to stop making them.
During his execution, Lockett was declared unconscious after the injection of midazolam in the state's new three-drug combination. Three minutes later, Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing, clenched his teeth and strained to lift his head off of a pillow in apparent agony.
Blinds separating a viewing gallery were then lowered and Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton halted the execution 20 minutes later. Lockett died from a heart attack soon after.
Fallin's investigation concluded in September that the execution failed because the first intravenous line in his groin was placed improperly and then covered with a sheet.
Trammell ordered Lockett's groin and the line insertion area covered to "maintain Lockett's dignity and keep his genital area covered," the report stated. It noted that members of the execution team had felt rushed, as Warner's execution was scheduled later in the evening.
Lockett's attorney, David Autry, witnessed the execution and said it was "totally botched."
"It was a horrible thing to witness," Autry said at the time. "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 was skeptical of prison officials' claims that one of Lockett's veins had blown.
"I'm not a medical professional, but Mr. Lockett was not someone who had compromised veins," Autry said. "He was in very good shape. He had large arms and very prominent veins."
An independent preliminary autopsy conducted by forensic pathologist Dr. Joseph Cohen in June supported Autry's observations. His report noted the "excellent integrity and peripheral and deep veins" for the purpose of an IV insertion. Cohen was unable to find "any significant underlying natural disease" nor a "cardiac condition" that played a role in his death by heart attack.
Lockett's family has since sued Oklahoma officials and the compounding pharmacies that provided the execution drugs, claiming in Federal Court that Lockett was used "as a lab rat" in "a failed medical experiment" that was "a barbaric spectacle."
Several media members also sued state officials in Federal Court, claiming the drawing of the blinds deprived them and the public of the right to observe Lockett's final moments.
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http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/attorneys-trying-stop-upcoming-executions/njSsG/
Attorneys trying to stop upcoming executions
Next Oklahoma inmate scheduled to die Jan. 15
By Skyler Cooper and The Associated Press, December 15, 2014
Attorneys for 21 Oklahoma death row inmates are due in federal court this week hoping that behind-the-scenes details of an execution gone-wrong will prevent similar problems from ever happening again.
Attorneys for the state of Oklahoma say new lethal injection protocols will address the problems encountered during the April 29 execution of 38-year-old Clayton Lockett, who writhed on the gurney, clenched his teeth and mumbled before a doctor noticed a problem with an intravenous line. The inmates argue that the state is experimenting on them with new drug combinations that amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
A legal filing in the case includes accounts of Lockett's execution, including Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell's description of the scene inside the death chamber after the blinds were lowered on witnesses as "a bloody mess."
Oklahoma's first execution since Lockett's is set for Jan. 15, with three more scheduled in the following weeks. A federal judge will hold hearings starting Wednesday on the inmates' claims that the state isn't ready.
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