Oklahoma executes man for 1985 slaying of schoolteacher
MCALESTER, Okla. – Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for the 1985 shooting death of an Oklahoma Cityarea schoolteacher after courts rejected his claim that the state’s lethal injection method would result in unconstitutional pain and suffering.
Bigler Stouffer II, 79, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in Mcalester. He was declared dead at 10:16 a.m., 16 minutes after the execution was scheduled to start.
Stouffer was the first person executed in Oklahoma since John Grant convulsed on the gurney and vomited during his lethal injection in October as the state ended a six-year execution moratorium brought on by concerns over its protocols.
Stouffer has maintained his innocence in the attack that left Linda Reaves dead and her boyfriend, Doug Ivens, seriously injured. He and his attorneys argued in court filings that the state’s three-drug execution method poses a risk of unconstitutional pain and suffering and that Stouffer should
be included among other death row plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the protocols. But his request for a stay of execution was denied by a federal district judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. A final appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court was denied Thursday morning.