03-27-2014, 12:17 PM
Another victory for the anti death-penalty coalition
![[Image: 0.jpg]](https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/HH6cvHnsnf0/0.jpg)
Lockett is scheduled to die April 22. Warner's execution is April 29.
A judge in Oklahoma ruled that these two lovely gentlemen's constitutional rights would be violated if they were to be executed under current state protocols.
They have not challenged their convictions or death sentences; their guilt is not in question. They instead legally challenged the method/process by which they would be executed. Lockett was found guilty in the 1999 shooting death of a 19-year-old Perry woman. Warner was found guilty of the 1997 rape and murder of his girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter.
Oklahoma last week changed its protocols to allow five distinct methods of execution which state laws prohibit from being released in full, as I understand it. The judge essentially ruled that the "veil of secrecy" is a violation of the inmates' rights.
Three procedures use a three-drug protocol that starts with either sodium thiopental, pentobarbital or midazolam and ends with vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes inmates, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
One uses a megadose of pentobarbital, and the other uses midazolam with hydromorphone. That mixtures was used in the Ohio execution of Dennis McGuire, who made gasp-like sounds for several minutes before being pronounced dead after 26 minutes.
Inmate Michael Wilson died at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in January after a three-drug injection that started with pentobarbital. His final words were "I feel my whole body burning."
Ref: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-rules-...itutional/
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I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. But, if a state has elected to have it in place and when there is no question as to the guilt of the death row inmates, I really don't give a shit if there is a possibility that some inmates might feel minutes of pain or inability to communicate before they fade away. I don't think lethal injection is in any way a cruel or unusual manner to facilitate death.
Not sure why it's so difficult for the US to produce a consistent combination of drugs that's publicly disclosed and readily available to death row prisons. The EU's ban on supplying death penalty drugs to the US has done what I suppose it was intended to do; given inmates and anti death-penalty advocates grounds to appeal/stay executions and tie up the courts.
IDK. If we're gonna use death as punishment in this country, wish we could come up with an in-house solution on how to facilitate it.
Lockett is scheduled to die April 22. Warner's execution is April 29.
A judge in Oklahoma ruled that these two lovely gentlemen's constitutional rights would be violated if they were to be executed under current state protocols.
They have not challenged their convictions or death sentences; their guilt is not in question. They instead legally challenged the method/process by which they would be executed. Lockett was found guilty in the 1999 shooting death of a 19-year-old Perry woman. Warner was found guilty of the 1997 rape and murder of his girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter.
Oklahoma last week changed its protocols to allow five distinct methods of execution which state laws prohibit from being released in full, as I understand it. The judge essentially ruled that the "veil of secrecy" is a violation of the inmates' rights.
Three procedures use a three-drug protocol that starts with either sodium thiopental, pentobarbital or midazolam and ends with vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes inmates, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
One uses a megadose of pentobarbital, and the other uses midazolam with hydromorphone. That mixtures was used in the Ohio execution of Dennis McGuire, who made gasp-like sounds for several minutes before being pronounced dead after 26 minutes.
Inmate Michael Wilson died at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in January after a three-drug injection that started with pentobarbital. His final words were "I feel my whole body burning."
Ref: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-rules-...itutional/
=======================================
I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. But, if a state has elected to have it in place and when there is no question as to the guilt of the death row inmates, I really don't give a shit if there is a possibility that some inmates might feel minutes of pain or inability to communicate before they fade away. I don't think lethal injection is in any way a cruel or unusual manner to facilitate death.
Not sure why it's so difficult for the US to produce a consistent combination of drugs that's publicly disclosed and readily available to death row prisons. The EU's ban on supplying death penalty drugs to the US has done what I suppose it was intended to do; given inmates and anti death-penalty advocates grounds to appeal/stay executions and tie up the courts.
IDK. If we're gonna use death as punishment in this country, wish we could come up with an in-house solution on how to facilitate it.