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| Oklahoma's brand new death chamber and gurney |
OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal judge has rejected a request by Oklahoma death-row inmates to halt executions in the state, finding that the state's protocol does not violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot clears the way for four upcoming executions, though the plaintiffs are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In making his ruling, Friot found that the plaintiffs, 21 death-row inmates, did not prove that the state's use of a new lethal drug, midazolam, presents a constitutionally unacceptable risk of pain and suffering during executions. That is the standard set up by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2008 ruling upholding lethal injection.
Friot said the inmates had failed to establish that the state's revised lethal injection protocol presents a risk that is "sure or very likely to cause illness or suffering."
Attorneys for the state maintained that midazolam has been found constitutional in Florida, where it has been used in 11 executions as the initial drug in a three-drug cocktail.
The state's attorneys say those executions were without incident. However plaintiffs' attorneys note that the second drug is a paralytic, which would prevent inmates from indicating they are in pain.
Midazolam was used in an Ohio execution that took 53 minutes and an Arizona execution that lasted nearly two hours.
The inmates' lawsuit also asked Friot to rule that the April 29 execution of inmate Clayton Lockett was unconstitutional. Lockett began speaking and trying to rise up from the gurney after a doctor declared him unconscious. Witnesses watched him writhe and mumble for three minutes before blinds in the execution chamber were closed.
DOC Director Robert Patton ordered the execution halted and Lockett died on the gurney while Gov. Mary Fallin was attempting to grant a stay, testimony indicated. Despite a policy calling for emergency measures in such situations, prison officials and the doctor took none and Lockett died on the gurney 43 minutes after the execution began.
Source: Tulsa World, December 22, 2014
