Clayton Lockett Botch Roundup: New York Times, The Guardian, Tulsa World, and more
Stefanie Faucher
New York Times - Grisly Execution in Oklahoma Detailed in Court Brief
The Guardian - Scene at botched Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was 'a bloody mess'
Tulsa World - Botched execution described as 'a bloody mess,' court filing shows
New York Daily News - Clayton Lockett’s botched execution was a ‘bloody mess’: report
The Independent UK - Botched Oklahoma lethal injection execution of Clayton Lockett described as ‘a bloody mess’
Daily Mail UK - 'It was a bloody mess': Report reveals prison warden's reaction to botched Oklahoma execution last night as more grisly details of his agonizing death are released
Randy Kriehbiel Blog - Cruel and unusual punishment
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/us/grisly-execution-in-oklahoma-detailed-in-court-brief.html?_r=0
Grisly Execution in Oklahoma Detailed in Court Brief
By Erik Eckholm, Dec. 13, 2014
The Oklahoma doctor involved in the bungled execution of Clayton D. Lockett in April made one last frantic attempt to insert an intravenous line in the prisoner’s groin but struck an artery by accident and was sprayed with blood, according to a document filed in Federal District Court.
“It was a bloody mess,” the document quotes Anita Trammell, the warden of the Oklahoma state prison where the execution took place, as saying in an interview with state investigators.
The court document, filed late Friday, includes gruesome details about Mr. Lockett’s final moments after he seemed to regain consciousness on the execution table, writhing in pain. The brief, filed in a lawsuit seeking to stop the executions of four prisoners in early 2015, also provides new evidence of the poor training and disarray among state officials, the paramedic who failed in numerous attempts to place a catheter and the doctor who tried to complete the task.
The prolonged and apparently agonizing death of Mr. Lockett, who was convicted of shooting a 19-year-old woman in 1999 and burying her alive, prompted new debate about the reliability of lethal injection and over questions about the drug combinations that states have tried as alternatives when the traditionally used barbiturates became scarce.
State officials had previously revealed that during the April 29 execution the doctor had, without realizing it, failed to place the catheter needle properly in Mr. Lockett’s femoral vein, causing the three drugs in the injection to diffuse locally rather than enter the bloodstream. When Mr. Lockett began to fight against his restraints and moan, officials closed the blinds on public witnesses.
At that point, according to the new document, the doctor tried again to insert a needle through Mr. Lockett’s groin. He did not realize at the time, he testified, that there were no drugs left for the injection. In keeping with state law, the doctor and others directly involved in the execution are not identified in the brief.
The doctor, working with a needle that he described as “kind of marginal” because it was shorter than those normally used to reach the femoral vein, punctured an artery. “Blood squirted up and got all over his jacket then,” Ms. Trammell testified. And the doctor, she told investigators, said he had to “get enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket.”
Minutes later, officials formally called off the execution, but Mr. Lockett’s heart soon stopped anyway and no efforts were made to resuscitate him.
Several officials acknowledged, according to the court brief, that they had no contingency plans in case Mr. Lockett failed to die according to plan.
Originally, Mr. Lockett’s execution was supposed to be followed two hours later by that of Charles F. Warner, who was convicted of raping and murdering an infant in 1997.
But Oklahoma immediately suspended his execution and others, pending a state investigation of what went wrong. Corrections officials say they have improved training and procedures, and Mr. Warner is now scheduled to die on Jan. 15, followed by three other convicts on Jan. 29, Feb. 19 and March 5.
Officials have said they plan to use a three-drug combination similar to that used for Mr. Lockett: a sedative, midazolam, but at ten times the dose used in his case, followed by a paralyzing agent and one that stops the heart.
The lawyers seeking to delay the planned executions contend, among other objections, that the use of midazolam is inherently flawed and that this regime amounts to unconstitutional experimentation on humans.
In hearings on the suit this week, the lawyers plan to call medical experts who say that midazolam cannot reliably achieve a level of sedation needed for a painless execution and that multiplying the dosage does not necessarily cause deeper sedation. The same agent was used in an execution in Arizona in July that dragged on for nearly two hours, as the prisoner gasped and officials repeatedly injected more drugs.
A version of this article appears in print on December 14, 2014, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Grisly Execution Detailed in Court Brief. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/13/botched-oklahoma-execution-clayton-lockett-bloody-mess
Scene at botched Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was 'a bloody mess'
Doctor squirted with blood after hitting condemned man’s artery
Court documents describe confusion and distress in execution chamber
Death penalty secrecy ‘imperils integrity of the procedure’
Clayton Lockett execution: Guardian writer’s witness account
By Katie Fretland, December 13, 2014
A doctor tried to set a new intravenous line in the groin area of Clayton Lockett during the condemned Oklahoma inmate’s botched execution, but blood squirted on to his clothing.
The prison warden described the scene as “a bloody mess”, according to a court document lawyers filed on Friday night on behalf of a group of Oklahoma death row inmates. The lawyers are asking a federal court judge to stop their executions, arguing their killings would be unconstitutionally cruel.
Oklahoma plans to execute Charles Warner on 15 January, Richard Glossip on 29 January, John Grant on 19 February and Benjamin Cole on 5 March.
Lockett died 43 minutes after the first execution drug was administered on 29 April, at the Oklahoma state penitentiary. He groaned, writhed, lifted his head and shoulders off the gurney and said “man”. Blinds were then drawn, blocking the killing from the view of journalists and his attorneys.
Lockett, 38, was convicted of the killing of 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 1999. She was shot and buried alive. Lockett was also convicted of raping her friend.
The court filing on Friday revealed new information about what happened to Lockett.
The doctor ran back and forth to check Lockett, according to the document. Lockett “raised up a little bit a couple of times and the phlebotomist told him to take deep breaths, you know, kind of out loud”, a witness said.
The witness, whose name was redacted, said he held Lockett down. Lockett’s movement “was a little bit more aggressive” than when the blinds were open, the witness said.
A paramedic involved in the execution described the doctor’s efforts to introduce another IV.
“I said [redacted] you’ve hit the artery,” the paramedic said. “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.”
The court filing describes the accounts of other witnesses during the botched execution. The lawyers who made the filing have access to transcripts of interviews conducted by the state department of public safety about Lockett’s execution. The transcripts are sealed in the court case, but the court did not find that the facts of the case should be sealed.
The first drug in the lethal injection was given at 6.23pm, records show. The doctor declared him unconscious at 6.33pm, but the doctor indicated that while the other drugs were given Lockett “raised his head up” and was “kind of jerking it”, according to the court filing.
He said Lockett “started moaning” and he “thought he was seizing”.
Warden Anita Trammell said she thought Lockett spoke.
“… I mean, I was kind of panicking,” she said. “Thinking oh my God. He’s coming out of this. It’s not working.”
Edith Shoals, a victim services advocate with the corrections department, was in an overflow room watching the execution. She said a woman ran out of the room. “It was like a horror movie … he kept trying to talk,” Shoals said.
Travis Brauer, an aide to the governor listening to the execution from the governor’s office, said he heard “a moaning noise”, according to the document.
Lockett was pricked at least 16 times in attempts to get the IV inserted for the lethal injection, according to the court filing. He was “in some pain”, Trammell said.
The correct needle was unavailable, and the doctor used a 1.25in needle instead of a 2in to 2.25in needle to put an IV in Lockett’s femoral vein. The doctor declined to set a second line.
“We had stuck this individual so many times, I didn’t want to try and do another line,” the doctor said. The state cited a failure of the IV in an investigation of the botched execution.
The corrections director, Robert Patton, called off the execution at about 6.56pm.
No life-saving measures were given to Lockett, according to the paramedic. Trammell asked the doctor if resuscitating Lockett was possible, according to the court filing.
According to the document, the doctor said “he would have to take Lockett to the emergency room, but someone told (the doctor) that they could not do that”.
Another witness said Trammell asked “if they could bring him back to life” and he thought the physician “said no”, the document states.
Oklahoma injected Lockett with midazolam, which acts as a sedative and is also used as an anti-seizure drug, followed by vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The drugs came from a “licensed pharmacist in the State of Oklahoma”, according to the court filing.
Mike Oakley, the former general counsel for the corrections department, said he consulted with general counsels in other states about midazolam. Oakley also consulted the internet.
“I did have a discussion with our medical director at the time and he said, ‘Yeah Midazolam probably when administered will, will render sedation,’” Oakley said. “And that’s all he would say. Then, you know, I did my own research, I looked on-line, you know. Went past the key Wiki leaks, Wiki leaks 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.”
Oakley described “political pressure”, according to the document.
“[T]he attorney general’s office, being an elective office, was under a lot of pressure,” he said. “The, the staff over there was under a lot of pressure to, to say, ‘Get it done,’ you know, and so, yeah, I, I think it was a joint decision but there was, I got to say there was a definite push to make the decision, get it done, hurry up about it.”
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Botched execution described as 'a bloody mess,' court filing shows
By Ziva Branstetter and Cary Aspinwall, December 13, 2014
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 paramedic who struggled to start numerous IVs that night told state investigators that “the process that day as a whole” was “a cluster.”
The document was filed by attorneys representing 21 death-row inmates suing the state as a result of Lockett’s execution, alleging Oklahoma’s execution procedures amount to cruel and unusual punishment and violate their constitutional rights.
Lockett began to writhe and mumble several minutes after he was declared unconscious by the doctor. His death took 43 minutes and involved numerous failed IV attempts.
A state investigation released in September pointed to the failed IV as the largest problem in Lockett’s execution, noting the prison lacked key medical equipment and a contingency plan despite having two inmates scheduled to die that night. The investigation, led by Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson, did not hold any state official or execution team member responsible for failures during the execution.
The document filed Friday reveals many details the state has not publicly disclosed and has fought in court to conceal since Lockett’s death. The plaintiffs’ proposed findings of fact is based on DPS documents, including interview transcripts that remain sealed.
The Tulsa World requested the transcripts, emails and other documents related to the execution months ago from DPS and Gov. Mary Fallin’s office, but they have not been released. DPS has not cited a law allowing it to withhold the transcripts and after the World’s request, DPS attorneys asked a judge to seal them.
‘Hurry up about it’
According to the filing Friday, key prison officials and the doctor who carried the execution say they had little knowledge of the drugs being administered, and the Attorney General’s Office helped select the drug combination used. The botched execution was the state’s first use of midazolam, a sedative involved in problematic executions in Ohio and Arizona.
In emails and prior statements to the World, Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office repeatedly insisted DOC was solely responsible for the protocol. The state’s protocol states that the OSP warden “will have sole discretion as to which lethal agent will be used for the scheduled execution.”
A former Department of Corrections general counsel told investigators the state was under “a lot of pressure” to carry out the executions of Lockett and another inmate, Charles Warner, on the same night.
“The Attorney General’s Office, being an elective office, was under a lot of pressure,” said Michael Oakley, former general counsel for the Department of Corrections, according to the motion. Oakley has since retired from DOC.
“The staff over there was under a lot of pressure to, to say, ‘Get it done,’ you know, and so, yeah, I, I think it was a joint decision but there was, I got to say there was a definite push to make the decision, get it done, hurry up about it.”
A week before Lockett and a second inmate were set to be executed, Fallin intervened in an ongoing legal challenge before the Supreme Court. Fallin stated that the court exceeded its authority when it had issued a stay in the case and set her own stay for seven days later.
According to the court filing, OSP Warden Anita Trammell said it was Pruitt’s office and Oakley who came up with the revamped execution protocol used on April 29. An affidavit that Trammell signed on the day of the execution said she would ensure DOC execution policies were followed.
“I signed the damn thing,” Trammell said during her interview with DPS. “I did not write that policy. I did not choose those drugs.”
Director Robert Patton confirmed in interviews with DPS that the lethal drugs were not chosen by Trammell: “The previous general counsel (Oakley) and the Attorney General’s Office” chose the drugs, he told investigators.
When supplies of Oklahoma’s usual execution drug ran short, the AG’s office and DOC’s general counsel cobbled together a new drug protocol, the filing shows. They used online research such as “Wiki leaks or whatever it is” and testimony from an expert who testified in Florida whom they did not meet with, Oakley told investigators.
Trammell said she was told the drug could take a few minutes longer to sedate the condemned men than previous drugs. When she talked to the execution team about “this drug, Midazolam, and the effects, the slower effects ... the executioners didn’t know anything about it. No one did.”
Jennifer Chance, deputy general counsel to Fallin, also told DPS investigators: “I knew that these drugs were expected to take longer than the old drugs. ... I had an understanding that it would take 10 to 15 minutes instead of the six to eight minutes.”
She said she learned that information from Patton, who was hired about three months before the execution after many years in Arizona. But the drug had not yet been used in an Arizona execution by the time Patton began working as DOC director.
In July, Arizona executed inmate Joseph Wood using midazolam, a process that took nearly two hours. Five days later, the warden who oversaw that execution, Lance Hetmer, began a newly created job as a special assistant to Patton.
The state’s official investigation reported Lockett received enough of the lethal drugs to die but did not verify that he had received enough midazolam to be rendered fully unconscious before the final two drugs were administered.
The death-row inmates who filed the suit seek an injunction halting future Oklahoma executions, alleging the state’s process is unconstitutional. Attorneys for the state say DOC should be allowed to continue with executions because a new protocol requires additional training and safeguards to ensure executions will be constitutional.
A hearing over the injunction request begins Wednesday in Oklahoma City’s federal court.
‘He tried to get up’
DPS Director Thompson said after the investigation that he didn’t consider the execution botched because “Lockett died.” But statements from witnesses and executioners paint a picture of a disturbingly bloody and hectic scene inside the prison.
One member of the execution team who was interviewed told investigators: “The warden, you know, said it was very bad. You know.
“And said we’d all be — said we’d all be going to federal court.”
The paramedic who described the scene as “a cluster” and others told investigators they felt stressed by the pressure of two executions in one night. Lockett and Warner were set to be executed two hours apart.
“There was an air of urgency there. The quick, quick. Got to get it done. Got to get it done,” he told investigators.
The paramedic initially “got the vein the first stick” when attempting to set the IV line but did not have tape to secure the line.
The doctor overseeing the execution filled in at the last minute after the prison’s usual execution doctor had a schedule conflict. The doctor, who had overseen one previous execution, said he was never told he would have to start an IV.
Neither the doctor nor paramedic who presided over Lockett’s execution are identified in the court filings due to a state law that bans state release of such information. The doctor has been identified in a civil suit by Lockett’s family as McAlester emergency room doctor Johnny Zellmer.
Zellmer has not returned calls seeking comment.
“I was hesitant to do anything,” the unnamed doctor told state investigators. “I said, I don’t know, you know, what my status is inside here. I’m not supposed to be doing anything except, you know, deciding whether he was unconscious and then declaring him deceased.”
He said he was told he may only have to insert an IV “in an emergent situation.”
Executioners who pushed the drugs were driven to the prison in hoods and paid $600 each because two executions were scheduled that night. They’re typically paid $300.
While a person’s hand is one of the easiest places to start an IV, the offender’s hands are tied down in a manner that makes it difficult, the paramedic told investigators.
When the doctor and paramedic began to attempt more difficult IV access in Lockett’s neck and groin areas, they didn’t have an ultrasound machine to guide the procedure or needles that were long enough.
The doctor said he attempted the femoral IV in Lockett’s groin as a last resort.
“Someone asked me about putting another line in, and I said I wouldn’t attempt it, I couldn’t, that I didn’t think I could get another line in and I wasn’t going to attempt” to.
“We had stuck this individual so many times, I didn’t want to try and do another line,” the doctor told investigators. “I wasn’t wanting to do the IV access in the first place. … I didn’t want to do any more, plain and simple.”
They covered the IV in Lockett’s groin area with a sheet so he wasn’t exposed to witnesses, the paramedic said. The sheet made it difficult to tell that the IV had infiltrated and the lethal injection drugs were leaking, according to the state’s investigation.
Trammell told investigators she should have realized the agency’s policy “does not tell us what to do when something goes south.”
One executioner said he heard a moan as the second syringe of drugs was pushed, but he wasn’t sure if it came from Lockett. The execution team pushing the drugs operate in a closet-sized room with a limited view of the chamber.
As they pushed the third and final drug, another executioner noticed Lockett’s violent reaction.
“He tried to get up. In my opinion, he tried to get up, because it floored me,” the executioner told investigators.
Several said he grimaced and appeared to be in pain, and may have uttered “man” or expletives.
Patton gave his own description of Lockett’s reaction to investigators: “I heard him say the word ‘man’, he did strain, he did – I guess a good word is to kinda (bare) his teeth a little bit.
“He had appeared, and by no means am I a medical professional, but it did appear that he was at least tremors. I’m not sure it was convulsions, but there were – he was having tremors in his legs, mainly. You know, the reaction from the witnesses was pretty intense.”
‘Blood everywhere’
One witness said the execution “was like a horror movie,” recalling that Lockett kept bucking and trying to get off the gurney.
The paramedic, who had stepped out of the chamber by this point, heard someone say the blinds were being lowered and he needed to return to the room.
“They’re putting the blinds down and he’s trying to get off the table. I thought, wow. Okay. What’s going on,” he told investigators.
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.
The warden described the scene inside the chamber as “a bloody mess.” The paramedic didn’t know whether a stay had been issued at this point.
Trammell got the director on the phone outside the chamber and told him what was happening.
Thompson was reportedly the first person who “recommended that we terminate the execution,” officials reported.
Patton consulted with the governor’s general counsel, Steve Mullins, and they decided to stop the execution.
Fallin was attending a Thunder basketball game in Oklahoma City at the time. She has said that members of her staff were in constant communication with DOC throughout the evening.
“Prior to the last witness leaving, the Warden called me back on the phone and said the offender had expired – had died. And I said, ‘Wow. Was it the chemicals or what?’ ” Patton recalled to investigators.
Ziva Branstetter 918-581-8306
Cary Aspinwall 918-581-8477
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/clayton-locket-botched-execution-bloody-mess-article-1.2045114
Clayton Lockett’s botched execution was a ‘bloody mess’: report
New testimony from Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell states blood spewed from Clayton Lockett’s punctured artery near his groin and splashed a doctor’s jacket before the convicted murderer finally died.
BY NICOLE HENSLEY, December 14, 2014
The last-ditch effort to execute death row inmate Clayton Lockett made a “bloody mess,” reports said.
The intravenous line punctured an artery next to the murderer’s groin and splattered an Oklahoma doctor with blood, federal documents obtained by the New York Times state.
Oklahoma State Penitentiary warden Anita Trammell called the mishap a “bloody mess” while describing the inmate’s pained moments during an April 29 lethal injection in an interview with investigators.
“Blood squirted up and got all over his jacket then,” Trammell stated.
Lockett, having murdered a 19-year-old woman, Stephanie Neiman, by shooting and burying her alive in 1999, spent 43 minutes dying a drawn out, agonizing death.
Midazalom had only been chosen months before and was expected to work at a slower pace. In Warner's case, Trammell said the "executioners didn't know anything about (midazolam). No one did."
When the drugs failed to take hold, the doctor testified he tried inserting yet another needle into Lockett’s groin that he described as only marginal, the Times reported, but the blood from a punctured artery splashed all over his jacket.
He said he hoped to “get enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket,” Trammell testified.
As Lockett struggled on the gurney, Trammell realized they had no plan if "something goes south."
Lockett eventually passed away after 43 minutes.
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Botched Oklahoma lethal injection execution of Clayton Lockett described as ‘a bloody mess’
By LAMIAT SABIN, December 14, 2014
A grisly execution of a US criminal in Oklahoma that did not go according to plan has been detailed for the first time since the ineffective lethal injection was administered eight months ago.
A medic had repeatedly attempted to insert an intravenous line in the groin of prisoner Clayton Lockett but pierced an artery by accident and was sprayed with blood, according to a document filed in Federal District Court on Friday, as reported by The New York Times.
Lockett, a murderer and rapist who was 38-years-old when he was killed by the state, was also said to have been writhing around, clenching his teeth, groaning in agony and had even tried to lift his head off the pillow just minutes after he was pronounced unconscious by doctors, before he died of a heart attack 43 minutes later.
“It was a bloody mess,” said Anita Trammell, the warden of the Oklahoma state prison where the execution took place on 29 April at 6.23pm, as recorded in an interview with state investigators.
After the doctor had realised that there was no drugs left for the execution and that the needle was too short to reach the veins, Lockett’s heart had stopped and no efforts were made to resuscitate him, The New York Times said.
Lockett had a long history of crime since he pleaded guilty for burglary at 19 for which he received seven years. In 1999, he kidnapped, beat and shot 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman before watching his accomplices bury her while she was still alive.
In 2000, he was convicted of murder, rape, forcible sodomy, kidnapping, assault and battery for which he was sentenced to death by lethal injection, which has the highest failure rate of all methods of execution at 7.1 per cent.
Several officials acknowledged, according to the court brief, that they had no contingency plans in case Lockett failed to die.
His execution was supposed to be followed two hours later by that of Charles F. Warner, who was convicted of raping and murdering an infant in 1997, but the state immediately suspended his execution and those of others to investigate what had went wrong.
Officials say they have improved training and procedures, and Warner is now scheduled to die on 15 January next year, followed by three other convicts on 29 January, 19 February and 5 March.
Officials have said they plan to use a three-drug combination similar to that used for Lockett with midazolam sedative, but at ten times the dose used, followed by a paralysing agent and one that stops the heart beating.
The lawyers seeking to delay the planned executions have claimed that the use of midazolam amounts to unconstitutional experimentation on humans and they plan to call upon medical experts in the hope to prove that multiplying the sedative dosage would not necessarily work.
Midazolam was also used during the execution of murderer Joseph Wood in Arizona, in July, that lasted nearly two hours while the prisoner gasped for breath as the executioners repeatedly injected more of the drugs.
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'It was a bloody mess': Report reveals prison warden's reaction to botched Oklahoma execution last night as more grisly details of his agonizing death are released
Document was filed Friday in a bid to have executions in the state stopped
Doctor overseeing murderer's April execution wrongly inserted the line
It caused the three drugs to be administered locally
This caused Lockett, who killed a woman in 1999, to writhe in pain
The medic then tried to inject the line into his groin - but hit an artery
Blood ended up going everywhere and covered the doctor's jacket
Prison warden Anita Trammell is quoted as saying: 'It was a bloody mess'
By WILLS ROBINSON, December 15, 2014
A report into the botched execution of Clayton Lockett has revealed new grisly details of the moments leading up to his agonizing death.
According to the document, a doctor tried to insert an intravenous line into his groin in a frantic attempt to save him, but hit and burst an artery instead.
It caused blood to splatter over the doctor's jacket before the execution was officially stopped. Lockett's heart stopped beating moments later.
In the report, Oklahoma state prison warden Anita Trammell is quoted as saying that the procedure was a 'bloody mess'.
The damning brief, obtained byThe New York Times, was filed in a court on Friday in a bid to stop four executions in the state at the beginning of next year.
It also sheds light on the lack of training those officiating the execution received, including a paramedic who tried a number of times to put a catheter in place.
The line into Lockett was not properly monitored during his April 29 execution meaning the three drugs were administered locally rather than spread throughout his system.
This caused him to writhe and groan in agony.
It was then that the doctor tried to insert a new line into his groin, but he hit an artery, causing blood to fly everywhere.
The medic told investigators, according to the report, that it was 'kind of marginal' because the needle was shorter than those normally used to reach the femoral artery.
His reaction led to Governor Mary Fallin halting all upcoming lethal injections in the state until the completion of the review.
No One Knew: Anita Trammell, Oklahoma State Penitentiary warden, told investigators that executioners knew nothing about the drug midazolam
Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton had previously said the inmate died from a heart attack several minutes after he ordered the execution stopped. No attempts were made to resuscitate him.
But the autopsy report performed for the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety said all three execution drugs were found throughout Lockett's system.
A medical examiner declared that the cause of death was 'judicial execution by lethal injection.'
The investigation concluded the viability of the IV access point was the single greatest factor that contributed to the difficulty in administering the execution drugs,' according to the DPS report. The agency's commissioner was appointed by Fallin.
Oklahoma put executions on hold after Lockett gasped and writhed against his restraints for several minutes after his April execution began.
The state used the sedative midazolam for the first time in Lockett's execution. That drug was also used in lengthy attempts to execute an Ohio inmate in January and an Arizona prisoner last month.
Each time, witnesses said the inmates appeared to gasp after their executions began and continued to labor for air before being pronounced dead.
Lockett, 38, had been convicted of shooting Stephanie Nieman, 19, with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999.
Lockett slipped in and out of consciousness during the botched execution that even caught President Barack Obama's attention and died shortly after officials called off the execution, realizing that something went wrong.
The day of Lockett's execution, he was reportedly tased when he resisted officials who tried to escort him from his cell to the execution chamber.
Documents obtained by the Times state that Lockett was treated for 'self-inflicted' injuries. The inmate refused food and refused to meet with his attorney hours before his execution.
Six months after Lockett's death, his brother Gary filed a lawsuit against the penitentiary for the botched execution saying that, with the use of the new drug midazolam, his brother was 'cast in the unwitting role of human lab rat.'
The lawsuit, obtained by KFOR , states that Lockett spoke numerous times during the painful ordeal and tried to rise from the execution table as he said that something was wrong.
The Daily News reports that midazolam had been chosen only month's before Lockett's execution.
Trammel reportedly told investigators that 'executioners didn't know anything about (midazolam). No one did.'
The Times reports that Lockett's grisly execution came after Oklahoma execution secrecy laws drew criticism and the execution prompted discussion about lethal drug reliability and alternatively used drug combinations.
Since Lockett's execution, the state's protocols have been rewritten to include more training and supply better equipment to the execution team and the amount of midazolam used during lethal injection has been increased by five times, according to the Daily News.
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http://randykrehbiel.com/2014/12/14/cruel-and-unusual-punishment/
Cruel and unusual punishment
By Randy Krehbiel, December 14, 2014
On Sunday, two of my Tulsa World colleagues published a detailed and grisly account of the state of Oklahoma’s crude execution of murderer Clayton Lockett, a stone killer convicted (and by all accounts rightfully so) of shooting a young woman and then burying her alive. There seems to be no doubt of his guilt.
Lockett and another murderer, Charles Warner, were to be executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary on April 29. Because the state could no longer get the drugs it had formerly used in executions, it was trying a new combination of uncertain effectiveness.
For reasons explained in the stories linked above, Lockett’s execution turned into a blood-soaked “cluster,” as one of those responsible for carrying it out put it. When Lockett finally died, almost an hour after the execution began, it was from a heart attack.
Predictability, the response to this has been, “So what?” His crime having been particularly cold-blooded, Lockett could hardly have been a less sympathetic figure. Many objected to descriptions of the execution as “botched.” Lockett was supposed to die and he did, and if it turned out to take a little longer and be a lot more painful than expected, so much the better.
The obvious answer to that is the U.S. Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishment,” and that what happened in Oklahoma’s execution chamber on April 29 seems to fall into that category.
But there is more to it than that. This is not about Clayton Lockett. It’s about us. It’s about doing things right. It’s about respect for the law and behaving like a civil society and not a lynch mob. The Eighth Amendment is there for a reason.
People who believe the death penalty should remain an option — and I’m one of them — ought to be outraged by what happened to Clayton Lockett, not because of Clayton Lockett, but because it reeks of incompetence and gives impetus to those who believe execution itself is cruel and unusual punishment.
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