States undeterred by execution ‘mess’
McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma’s last execution went so badly that the state tried to cancel it before it was over. With the inmate writhing while the lethal drugs seeped into his body, his executioners drew the viewing gallery curtains, concealing what the warden later described as “a bloody mess.”
The botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April and other troubling ones this year in Ohio and Arizona gave capital punishment opponents a flicker of hope that areas of the country that most enthusiastically support the death penalty might have a change of heart. They didn’t.
Although Gov. Mary Fallin suspended further executions so that Lockett’s death and Oklahoma’s methods could be reviewed, the state held what amounted to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its overhauled death chamber only months later and is scheduled to resume killing inmates in mid-January. And rather than causing states to question whether capital punishment is just or worth the risk of subjecting someone to a potentially agonizing death, the prolonged executions and problems states have had securing lethal injection drugs have led them to explore new, old and more efficient ways of killing, including gassing inmates.
“I think we had a little flash of hope that it would help our cause, but all it did was generate a lot of conversation about it,” said Lydia Polley, a longtime member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “It just led to people thinking of better ways to kill them.”
Lockett’s execution did little or nothing to dampen support for the death penalty in deeply conservative Oklahoma, which has killed more inmates than any other state except Texas since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. In October, officials gave media tours of the renovated execution unit at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, which got a $104,000 overhaul after Lockett’s death.
Not content with just the upgrades to the prison and lethal injection equipment, though, Oklahoma’s Republican-led House conducted a study on the use of nitrogen gas to execute inmates and is expected to consider legislation early next year that would make Oklahoma the first state to adopt hypoxia by gas — the forced deprivation of oxygen — as a legal execution method.
Other conservative states also are exploring alternatives to lethal injection because of the problems securing the drugs, which pharmaceutical companies now refuse to sell for use in lethal injections.
Tennessee passed a law this year to reinstate the electric chair if it can’t get lethal injection drugs, and Utah is considering bringing back the firing squad.
Ralph Shortey, a Republican state senator from Oklahoma City, estimates that 90 percent of his constituents strongly support the death penalty, despite what happened to Lockett.
“The average Oklahoman is saying he got exactly what he deserves,” Shortey said. “A lot of people think they should suffer even more than they do. They think the lethal injection is too easy for them.”