Oklahoma's 1st execution since 2015 set for Thursday

Oklahoma’s 1st execution since January 2015 is set for Thursday, pending any last-minute action.

John Marion Grant, 60, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Grant received a death sentence for the 1998 killing of Gay Carter, a 58-year-old prison cafeteria worker, at the Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy, where he was serving sentences for 4 armed robberies. An Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board unanimously rejected clemency for Grant in 2014 and another board rejected clemency earlier this month with a 3-2 vote.

Court documents state Grant dragged Carter into a mop closet and stabbed her 16 times with a shank after she took him off a kitchen job at the prison.

Defense attorneys had argued Grant received ineffective counsel as his lawyers didn’t present mitigating evidence, such as his difficult childhood.

Grant’s execution date was set for Oct. 28, 2015, before he and 2 other death row inmates received a last-minute stay of execution from then-Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin because the state received a different chemical for its 3-drug execution cocktail used at the time.

His stay came on the heels of several problematic state executions.

Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death in 2000 after being convicted of murder and several other charges after he and accomplices sexually assaulted 2 teenage women, one of whom Lockett shot before she was buried alive. He was scheduled for lethal injection on April 24, 2014. A doctor deemed Lockett unconscious but it took 43 minutes for him to die from the state’s 3-drug cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The Department of Public Safety’s investigation ultimately found that the IV in Lockett’s groin came loose and prolonged his death.

Then-U.S. President Barack Obama and the United Nations scrutinized the bungled execution. Oklahoma reconsidered its injection protocols in the aftermath and the state’s prison system director and the OSP warden quit after appearing before a federal grand jury.

Lockett’s brother filed a suit alleging torture and other claims before a 3-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit in 2016 called it an “innocent misadventure” in upholding a decision to dismiss the lawsuit.

Arguments over Oklahoma’s three-drug cocktail led to more scrutiny. The state hadn’t used midazolam in prior executions before administering it to Lockett to render him unconscious before giving him the other 2 drugs.

News-Capital staff witnessed the January 2015 lethal injection of Charles Warner that appeared to go off without any problems. However, it was later found the state used a different drug at that time that wasn't approved in previous protocols. A grand jury reported Oklahoma’s then-general counsel, Steve Mullins, told prison officials to go forward with another death row inmate’s execution, that of Richard Glossip — despite receiving potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride — the same mixture used in Warner’s execution. However, that's when Fallin intervened.

A grand jury recommended looking into using nitrogen gas for executions — which state officials announced in 2018 was being planned before resuming executions.

But Gov. Kevin Stitt and then-attorney general Mike Hunter announced in February 2020 the state would resume lethal injections after gassing protocols took too long to develop and a new supply of lethal drugs was procured.

Oklahoma is set to use the same 3-drug combination it used in Lockett’s 2014 execution.

Midazolam renders the inmate unconscious, then vecuronium bromide is administered as a muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride stops the heart.

Source: mcalesternews.com, Staff, October 25, 2021

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