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| Clayton Lockett |
OKLAHOMA CITY — Clayton D. Lockett, whose botched execution in April led to a moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma, was most likely conscious, in intense pain and feeling the equivalent of “liquid fire” from the inappropriate use of drugs used to kill him, a Florida anesthesiologist testified here on Wednesday.
At a hearing in federal court on whether Oklahoma should resume executions on Jan. 15, the anesthesiologist, Dr. David Lubarsky of the University of Miami, was highly critical of the three-drug cocktail used by Oklahoma officials in the execution. One reason, he said, is that their administering of a much higher dose of the first drug, midazolam, does not increase its effectiveness.
“People who are asleep don’t make an attempt to speak,” Dr. Lubarsky testified about Mr. Lockett’s behavior. “It is considered unethical to try this on human beings who cannot consent.”
Midazolam is often the first drug that anesthesiologists give to surgical patients because it reduces their anxiety. Dr. Lubarsky said that it hits a “ceiling,” relaxing patients but not keeping them far enough under to perform surgery or administer drugs like the second and third ones used in Mr. Lockett’s execution.
Oklahoma maintains that the problematic execution of Mr. Lockett, who was convicted of shooting a 19-year-old woman in 1999 and burying her alive, was an anomaly caused by an improperly set intravenous line.
Several of Oklahoma’s death row inmates and their families are suing the state in federal court, seeking an injunction to postpone their executions until the drug protocol can be revised.
Judge Stephen Friot opened the three-day hearing on Wednesday. Oklahoma has four executions scheduled from Jan. 15 to March 5, including that of Charles Warner, whose execution was supposed to immediately follow Mr. Lockett’s.
Also testifying Wednesday was Dr. Joseph Cohen, a pathologist hired by Mr. Lockett’s lawyer, who said there were at least 15 puncture wounds in the unsuccessful attempts to insert an intravenous line into the prisoner.
Dr. Cohen questioned the competence of the physician who oversaw the execution.
Anita Trammell, the warden for the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, who was inside the death chamber during Mr. Lockett’s execution, admitted in court that training that occurred as late as the day of the execution was not adequate.
She attributed problems inserting the intravenous line to Mr. Lockett’s being dehydrated and having been a former IV-drug user. She told the court that it had taken 50 minutes to get one line in place in a femoral artery and that there were usually two lines. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said multiple autopsies had not shown Mr. Lockett was dehydrated.
