The first double execution in Oklahoma since 1937 was botched badly tonight when the cocktail of chemicals that was supposed to kill 38-year-old Clayton Lockett failed to actually kill him.
Various news reports and tweets from the McAlester prison where Lockett was held reported that the new cocktail included the sedative midazolam, which is normally used as a seizure medication. The drug has seen an increase of inclusion in the lethal injection process after the manufacturers of phenobarbital, the process’ previous sedative, forbade its use.
According to Bailey Elise McBride and Sean Murphy from the Associated Press:
The execution began at 6:23 p.m. when officials began administering the first drug, and a doctor declared Lockett to be unconscious at 6:33 p.m.
About three minutes later, though, Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow. After about three minutes, a doctor lifted the sheet that was covering Lockett to examine the injection site. After that, an official who was inside the death chamber lowered the blinds, preventing those in the viewing room from seeing what was happening.
Patton then made a series of phone calls before calling a halt to the execution. He also issued a 14-day postponement in the execution of inmate Charles Warner, who had been scheduled to die on Tuesday, two hours after Lockett was put to death.
Lockett allegedly died of a massive heart attack 20 minutes after the initial injection, though not much is known past that.
Oklahoma is one of 32 states that still carry the death penalty as punishment.
It should be the next state to abolish it.
I think this is one of my worst nightmares. I don't know any worse way to die. Think about this: You commit a crime. You are arrested. You do years of court dates and move between jail and prison and the courthouse. You see family. You see the victims family. You endure stress. Your friends disown you. God hates you. You are forced to be remorseful. You are told what to do, how to act, and rehearse your lines for hours. You meet people. You fight with people. You hide. You find a new place in life. You are found guilty. You spend another number of weeks preparing for sentencing. You do the entire process again, only this time you already know you have been found guilty. You are sentenced to death. You spend twenty years in prison. You come to terms with your impending death and all the emotional hell that comes with it. Your range of emotions fluctuate across guilt, denial, anger, grief, horror, sadness, acceptance. You have appeals. You make friends. You fight. You lose friends. Your family disappears slowly. Your kids are now the same age as you when you entered prison. You try to find meaning in life. You have appeal court dates. You read. You hope. You lose hope. There is no hope. There is hope. You finally arrive at the date. You are forced to accept your death. You go through a whole new series of emotions processing you now super-impending death. You say goodbye. You still don't know the meaning of life. You eat. You say your last words. You feel the needle. You drift off. You get foggy. And then you feel enormous, horrible pain and gasp for air and try not to drown and try to keep your head from exploding. You are confused. You hope. You see God. Nope.
You cringe for 20 minutes enduring this purgatory on a cold slab with florescent lights and an itchy injection site and people poking and talking and stressing out in loud whispers. And then your heart explodes. Fuck. That.
Not to be flippant or anything, but this reminded me that a soccer player apparently committed suicide by diving into quicksand yesterday. -- Anyway, the death penalty is ... unconscionable is evidently a thoroughly meaningless word in the 21st century, but if ever there were a use ... ... I don't have much to say that isn't painfully obvious to anyone with intelligent opinions.I think this is one of my worst nightmares. I don't know any worse way to die.
I support the death penalty in theory, in exceptional cases where the prisoner would otherwise be kept life long in isolation with no hope for parole like if they carried out massive terrorist attacks killing hundreds of people. However, all of them must be given a fair trial and their sentence should be carried out as soon as possible, cleanly, quickly and quietly so that their suffering isn't dragged on needlessly. However, cases like this make me my position be anti-death penalty. Unless we have a method with a 100% success rate and absolute certainty that he was the perpetrator(i.e. mountains of evidence not even Phoenix Wright can find holes in) , executions should be put on hold. And under no circumstance should it be open for viewers, even if through a window. The only people present should be the condemned, the executioner(s) and security detail posted outside.
I always hear these ridiculous claims as to when to support the death penalty. "only if they killed exactly 14 people on Tuesday in front of a Supreme Court Judge and ate a banana from the bottom end and a court scribe was there documenting the whole thing while Errol Morris filmed it all and the president is on the jury and..." why not just not have the death penalty? It's state-sponsored murder and used purely as a way to get revenge. It breeds the acceptance of revenge, and in heinous crimes, people are always going to want to go for it given the choice, and it's bound to be at some point "well, this is a REALLY bad crime, and there's LOTS of evidence, so let's do it.", and there have been tons of cases where that's thought to have happened and been wrong. And an innocent person died. On top of that, what does it accomplish? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will get the death penalty, almost certainly. So now we have a dead terrorist and lots of dead and angry people who feel satisfied that someone else is dead. He also potentially becomes a martyr, there's a chance at another terrorist, and nothing changes. Meanwhile, in Norway, Anders Breivik sits in prison. He is a man that will most likely never leave prison, however, there is no death penalty. There isn't even a life sentence. There is a maximum number of years that can be given to a person (I believe 17) and then at the end of that term, it is determined if the person has been rehabilitated. If not, they stay in prison until they are. The system is built on rehabilitation, and they have an astoundingly low recidivism rate across the board. Breivik will probably never be fixed, nor will Tsarnaev, but at the very least, if we had Norway's system, people live, and there's a chance at recovery. There's a chance that a serious criminal can understand and become a productive member of society, and people see that the state actually cares about the well-being of its citizens and its goal is good people, instead of punishment and revenge.
That's a rational point of view. I don't agree; I believe roughly that we don't have the moral right to kill fellow humans if we don't think they will cause us or ours harm in the future -- so I'm not a pacifist but I dislike the death penalty.
WHAT?! This sounds amazing...ly horrible. Link please.diving into quicksand
Well, the article isn't in English. http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/24a9bj/18_year_old_fc_groningen_midfielder_renier_de/
Hey, what the hell, I heard that story yesterday because I live in the area. It is truly one of the most horrific ways to end one's life. Maandagavond kwam de melding dat de achttienjarige middenvelder was verdronken op de Witte Zandvlakte terwijl hij aan het vissen was. Na onderzoek van de politie blijkt dat de jonge Urker zichzelf van het leven heeft beroofd. Vanwege het drama is een wedstrijd van de B1 uitgesteld en FC Groningen is in overleg of er nog meer activiteiten worden afgelast, dit meldt RTV Noord Quick translation: Update: Reinier de Groene has robbed himself of his life, the police reports Tuesday morning Monday night the police got a noticed of the 18-yo midfielder's drowning on the White Sandfield while he was fishing. After investigation they came to the conclusion that the young inhabitant of Urk had robbed himself of his life. Because of the drama, the B1 soccer team game has been suspended and FC Groningen is in discussions whether more activities will be suspended, RTV Noord reports. Update: 29-4-2014 14.03 Reinier de Groene heeft zichzelf van het leven beroofd, meldt de politie dinsdagmorgen.