Oklahoma halted execution questions answered

Friends and supporters protesting Richard Glossip's execution.

Oklahoma's protocols called for potassium chloride to be used in the scheduled execution of death row inmate Richard Glossip, but the state received potassium acetate instead. The state's attorney general has asked a court to delay Glossip's rescheduled execution and others that have been set while a review is done on why the wrong drug came.

Here are some questions and answers about the drugs and Oklahoma's execution process:

Q: ARE POTASSIUM CHLORIDE AND POTASSIUM ACETATE ALIKE?

A: According to the National Institutes of Health, potassium acetate and potassium chloride can each be used in medical settings to treat low levels of potassium, restoring appropriate heart rhythms, blood pressure and kidney function. NIH does not describe the drugs' use in death penalty cases. Executioners use potassium chloride to stop an inmate's heart.

Dr. Alice Chen, an internal medicine specialist and executive director of Doctors for America, says the 2 drugs are not interchangeable.

"As with any other drug, people react to them in different ways," Chen said. "We're not certain what the dose should be, how different people would react to it in the cocktail."

But Robert Patton, Oklahoma's prisons director, told reporters Thursday that the state's drug supplier believed one drug could be swapped with the other. He refused to say who supplied the drug; state law keeps the information a secret.

"Contact was immediately made to the provider, whose professional opinion was that potassium acetate is medically interchangeable with potassium chloride at the same quantity," Patton said. "However, by the provider supplying us with potassium acetate, a legal ambiguity was created that needed to be cleared up before moving forward."

Q: HAS POTASSIUM ACETATE BEEN USED IN A U.S. EXECUTION?

A: No, according to Jen Moreno, a staff attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at the at the University of California's Berkeley Law School.

"It's never been used, and actually doctors and pharmacologists we're talking to aren't super familiar with it," Moreno said. "It's not a very common drug it seems."

Q: WHAT'S ALLOWED UNDER OKLAHOMA'S EXECUTION PROTOCOLS?

A: Oklahoma has some leeway in the drugs it uses in lethal injections, giving Patton discretion as to which chemicals are used. The protocols include dosage guidelines for single-drug lethal injections of pentobarbital or sodium pentothal, along with dosages for a 3-drug protocol of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The protocols also allow for rocuronium or pancuronium bromide to be substituted for the 2nd drug. The protocols do not list an alternate for potassium chloride, which is the 3rd drug used.

Much attention has been paid to midazolam, a sedative that Oklahoma first used in the April 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett. That execution - which lasted more than 40 minutes - led to a lawsuit that ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June that the use of midazolam is constitutional.

The protocol says the state must notify the inmate within 10 days of the execution which drugs will be used. In an Aug. 11 letter to Glossip's attorneys, the state said it planned to use midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride in Glossip's execution and that the drugs "have been obtained." No explanation has been offered for why potassium acetate was made available instead. Patton on Thursday blamed the vendor.

Q: WHEN DID THE STATE FIND OUT IT HAD THE WRONG DRUG?

A: Patton said a sealed box from the drug supplier was opened about 1 p.m. CDT Wednesday, two hours before Glossip's scheduled execution. He said the prison system immediately reached out to the supplier and was told potassium acetate was a suitable substitute.

Patton said the department tried to obtain potassium chloride but determined it wouldn't have been able to obtain it in time to carry out Glossip's execution on Wednesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court, asked to rule on Glossip's appeal for more time to prove his claim of innocence, issued its denial shortly before Glossip's scheduled execution time of 3 p.m. CDT. Fallin issued her emergency stay around 3:45 p.m.

Source: Associated Press, October 3, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Florida | Tampa Bay man who killed wife, 3 family members sentenced to die

Shelby Nealy will be executed by the state for bludgeoning his wife’s family to death in 2018, a judge decided Friday. During a two-week sentencing trial in July, jurors heard how Nealy, 32, ended a volatile relationship with his second wife by killing her, then murdered her parents and brother a year later in an effort to never be caught. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2023. On July 25, the jury of three men and nine women deliberated for about two hours and voted 11-1 that Nealy should be sentenced to death. He stared straight ahead as the verdict was read.

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

US AG Authorizes Federal Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Three LA Gangsters Charged with Murder

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has directed federal prosecutors in Los Angeles to seek the death penalty against three members of a transnational street gang charged with murdering a former gang member who was cooperating with law enforcement on a racketeering and methamphetamine trafficking case, officials announced Thursday. In a letter to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on Wednesday, Blanche told prosecutors in the Central District of California they are “authorized and directed” to seek the death penalty against Dennis Anaya Urias, 27, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, 26, and Roberto Carlos Aguilar, 31. All are from South Los Angeles.

Saudi Arabia | Seven executed for drug trafficking

Saudi authorities executed seven people who had been convicted of drug trafficking in a single day, state media says. The Saudi Press Agency says five Saudis and two Jordanians were found guilty of trafficking amphetamine pills into the kingdom. “The death penalty was carried out as a discretionary punishment against the perpetrators,” the agency reports, adding that the executions took place on Sunday in the Riyadh region. Since the beginning of 2026, Riyadh has executed 38 people in drug-related cases, the majority of the 61 executions carried out, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Texas | Death Sentence Overturned After 48 Years

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday that Clarence Jordan’s punishment was unconstitutional A death sentence handed down by a Harris County jury in 1978 was overturned Thursday by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Clarence Jordan, 70, has been on Texas Death Row for almost 50 years, serving out one of the longest death sentences in the nation while suffering from intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, his attorney told the Houston Press.

Texas appeals court says another man's confession not enough to reconsider Broadnax execution

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday it won't consider another man's confession as a reason to pause a scheduled lethal injection in three weeks. James Broadnax was convicted of murdering two Christian music producers in Garland, but his cousin, Demarius Cummings, recently confessed that he was the shooter. University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Clinic professor Jim Marcus said the appeals court acts as a gatekeeper for cases meeting criteria to get back in court.

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”

North Carolina | “Incapable to proceed”: man who killed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska ruled incompetent

DeCarlos Brown, accused of stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train, has been found mentally unfit for trial, stalling death penalty proceedings. DeCarlos Brown Jr., accused of fatally stabbing 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025, has been found mentally incapable of standing trial, according to a court motion filed 7 April in Mecklenburg Superior Court. A 29 December 2025 report from Central Regional Hospital, a state psychiatric facility in Granville County, concluded that Brown was "incapable to proceed to trial," according to the motion filed by his attorney, Daniel Roberts. The evaluation was ordered after Brown's defense raised concerns about his mental state.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog