47 minutes of pain

[Thanas]

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — A botched execution that used a new drug combination left an Oklahoma inmate writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney Tuesday, leading prison officials to halt the proceedings before the inmate's eventual death from a heart attack.

Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of the state's new three-drug lethal injection combination was administered. Three minutes later, though, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow.

The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state's top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack a short time later, the Department of Corrections said.

"It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched," said Lockett's attorney, David Autry.

The problems with the execution are likely to fuel more debate about the ability of states to administer lethal injections that meet the U.S. Constitution's requirement they be neither cruel nor unusual punishment. That question has drawn renewed attention from defense attorneys and death penalty opponents in recent months, as several states scrambled to find new sources of execution drugs because drugmakers that oppose capital punishment — many based in Europe — have stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.

Defense attorneys have unsuccessfully challenged several states' policies of shielding the identities of the new sources of their execution drugs. Missouri and Texas, like Oklahoma, have both refused to reveal their sources, but both of those states have since successfully carried out executions with their new supplies.

Tuesday was the first time Oklahoma used the drug midazolam as the first element in its execution drug combination. Other states have used it before; Florida administers 500 milligrams of midazolam as part of its three-drug combination. Oklahoma used 100 milligrams.

"They should have anticipated possible problems with an untried execution protocol," Autry said. "Obviously the whole thing was gummed up and botched from beginning to end. Halting the execution obviously did Lockett no good."

Republican Gov. Mary Fallin ordered a 14-day stay of execution for an inmate who was scheduled to die two hours after Lockett, Charles Warner. She also ordered the state's Department of Corrections to conduct a "full review of Oklahoma's execution procedures to determine what happened and why during this evening's execution."

Robert Patton, the department's director, halted Lockett's execution about 20 minutes after the first drug was administered. He later said there had been vein failure.

The execution began at 6:23 p.m., when officials began administering the first drug, the sedative midazolam. A doctor declared Lockett to be unconscious at 6:33 p.m.

Once an inmate is declared unconscious, the state's execution protocol calls for the second drug, a paralytic, to be administered. The third drug in the protocol is potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Patton said the second and third drugs were being administered when a problem was noticed and it's unclear how much of the drugs made it into the inmate's system.

Lockett began writhing at 6:36. At 6:39, a doctor lifted the sheet that was covering the inmate to examine the injection site.

"There was some concern at that time that the drugs were not having that (desired) effect, and the doctor observed the line at that time and determined the line had blown," Patton said at a news conference afterward, referring to Lockett's vein rupturing.

After an official lowered the blinds, Patton made a series of phone calls before calling a halt to the execution.

"After conferring with the warden, and unknown how much drugs went into him, it was my decision at that time to stop the execution," Patton told reporters.

Lockett was declared dead at 7:06 p.m.

Autry, Lockett's attorney, was immediately skeptical of the department's determination the issue was limited to a problem with Lockett's vein.

"I'm not a medical professional, but Mr. Lockett was not someone who had compromised veins," Autry said. "He was in very good shape. He had large arms and very prominent veins."

In Ohio, the January execution of an inmate who made snorting and gasping sounds led to a civil rights lawsuit by his family and calls for a moratorium. The state has stood by the execution but said Monday that it's boosting the dosages of its lethal injection drugs.

A four-time felon, Lockett was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in rural Kay County in 1999 after Neiman and a friend arrived at a home the men were robbing.

Warner had been scheduled to be put to death two hours later in the same room and on the same gurney. The 46-year-old was convicted of raping and killing his roommate's 11-month-old daughter in 1997. He has maintained his innocence.

Lockett and Warner had sued the state for refusing to disclose details about the execution drugs, including where Oklahoma obtained them.

The case, filed as a civil matter, placed Oklahoma's two highest courts at odds and prompted calls for the impeachment of state Supreme Court justices after the court last week issued a rare stay of execution. The high court later dissolved its stay and dismissed the inmates' claim that they were entitled to know the source of the drugs.

By then, Fallin had weighed into the matter by issuing a stay of her own — a one-week delay in Lockett's execution that resulted in both men being scheduled to die on the same day.

Tl, DR: Incompetent executioners caused a convicted felon to writhe in pain for over 47 minutes before his heart gave out. To top it off, he was apparently declared unconscious despite writhing in pain 3 minutes later.

[Simon_Jester]

I honestly don't know how people got the idea that lethal injection was a more humane means of execution than previous methods. At least with a hanging or a firing squad, the means exist to ensure it's over within a couple of minutes. The suffering can end quickly.

This kind of thing... the word that springs to mind is "excruciating-" in the sense that dying on a cross was slow and brutally painful due to the medical nature of what was happening to you. Even if you're one of the 'lucky' ones, you're being strapped to a gurney and stuck their conscious for many minutes while they put the needle in and the knockout drugs take effect.

[This is not intended to negate anyone's anti-death-penalty stance; I'm simply comparing different means of execution]

[LaCroix]

The most incriminating thing (to me) is: If we have a to be executed person writhing in pain because something went wrong during the execution, why did they not end his suffering but instead watched almost an hour! They could have given him extra doses of what he should have gotten, or simple put a bullet to his brain. Simply waiting it out was inhumane.

[Simon_Jester]

The only time I've heard about that before was as the premise for an episode of a TV series. The points that may occur to me:

1) Yes, there's quite a good chance that some or all of the staff involved really are that inhumane and cruel.

2) One thing anyone in a prison system who's remotely professional learns is not to deviate from procedures, which tends to deter them from ad-libbing the end of an execution even in the interests of basic humane concerns.

Unfortunately, unlike some traditional execution protocols, the procedure for modern lethal injections does not include having someone standing by with a pistol to end it if the condemned doesn't die quickly- because shooting people apparently makes people in positions of responsibility squeamish. While strapping people to a bench and pumping them full of poison that may or may not kill them promptly while they are or are not conscious... doesn't. Somehow.

[His Divine Shadow]

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

[Thanas]

Gut answer: Because that would undermine the war on drugs, duh. And letting the person go out on a high might not be a desired way due to the vengeance aspect of execution - you might not want people to be "rewarded" with a good death. (The above are IMO all stupid points of view but there are probably people who believe in them).

More reasoned answer: Apparently opiate overdoses also include seizures and violent shaking in some people, so it might not do much in some cases.

************
But seriously, if any of the guards had taken out his club and bashed the guys head in he would almost certainly have been in less pain for a shorter period of time.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

Better way to do it. Have the cell they await execution in be capable of being gas sealed. Then you give them an injection of a mild sedative or sleep medication, say, ambien or something like along those lines. Maybe Valium. Wait until they are comfortably asleep. Then, you pump pure nitrogen gas into the cell from a container of liquid N2. It is denser than oxygen, so the oxygen will be displaced. They die from hypoxia, but because they can still vent CO2, their body wont notice. They to sleep, they never wake up. No chance for a boxed execution ever.

[Grumman]

I do support the death penalty, but this is further evidence that the United States is too incompetent to be trusted with it.

If we are going to execute someone, we should do so humanely. Faffing about trying to poison someone to death in a way that looks humane is getting in the way of executing them in a way that is humane.

[Thanas]

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

Better way to do it. Have the cell they await execution in be capable of being gas sealed. Then you give them an injection of a mild sedative or sleep medication, say, ambien or something like along those lines. Maybe Valium. Wait until they are comfortably asleep. Then, you pump pure nitrogen gas into the cell from a container of liquid N2. It is denser than oxygen, so the oxygen will be displaced. They die from hypoxia, but because they can still vent CO2, their body wont notice. They to sleep, they never wake up. No chance for a boxed execution ever.

My sister is a vet and as part of her training has to work in a slaughterhouse that uses these techniques on pigs, oftentimes it is botched due to incorrect dosages. Apparently it is very hard to get the dosage correct for pigs alone, so...

Granted that could be solved via a long exposure and much stronger dosage but in the end it would probably still rely on disciplined doctors unless you just use so much nitrogen that all is displaced.

[Mr. Coffee]

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

Better way to do it. Have the cell they await execution in be capable of being gas sealed. Then you give them an injection of a mild sedative or sleep medication, say, ambien or something like along those lines. Maybe Valium. Wait until they are comfortably asleep. Then, you pump pure nitrogen gas into the cell from a container of liquid N2. It is denser than oxygen, so the oxygen will be displaced. They die from hypoxia, but because they can still vent CO2, their body wont notice. They to sleep, they never wake up. No chance for a boxed execution ever.

My sister is a vet and as part of her training has to work in a slaughterhouse that uses these techniques on pigs, oftentimes it is botched due to incorrect dosages. Apparently it is very hard to get the dosage correct for pigs alone, so...

Granted that could be solved via a long exposure and much stronger dosage but in the end it would probably still rely on disciplined doctors unless you just use so much nitrogen that all is displaced.

I don't see why one wouldn't just flood the room and wait a couple of hours if it's being used to execute someone. Just sure, you'd have to ask your sister to find out, but I think the trouble with euthanizing pigs for slaughter might have something to do with effecting the taste of the meat. No worries about screwing up the taste of the meat at an execution since, well, eating the condemned isn't something anyone sane really does.

All else fails, just use a hypobaric chamber, strap the condemned to a chair, take them up to 10km simulated altitude and yank their oxygen mask. Then just wait an hour. Either way you're looking at pain-free hypoxia as the method of death.

[Mr Bean]

As has been pointed out in the past, when we want to quietly kill something with a minimum of pain and suffering there are a dozen methods that don't involve three separate drugs. As pointed out massive doses of morphine work fine, carbon monoxide works fine.
And we don't need a giant sealed room, when a little breath mask and some restraints work just fine, it's not like you won't have time to get their measurements to get an exact dosage required... then triple it to be safe/
There's also the death coaster, my vote is the death coaster because it's fun and deadly! Also painless

[LaCroix]

Hell, why just triple? I've got a 20l tank of 200bar-compressed CO2 in my workshop for welding - that 's 4000L of CO2, and the fill costs about 20 bucks. CO won't be much more expensive. Mask on, open valve, and let him snuff the whole container dry. Same for morphine - give him half a gallon, if you want, just make sure it goes quick!

"Dosage" is a term if you want to stay safe and keep something alive - if you want to snuff someone with something, there is no overdose that suddenly tuns him alive, again.

[Mr Bean]

Hell, why just triple? I've got a 20l tank of 200bar-compressed CO2 in my workshop for welding - that 's 4000L of CO2, and the fill costs about 20 bucks. CO won't be much more expensive. Mask on, open valve, and let him snuff the whole container dry. Same for morphine - give him half a gallon, if you want, just make sure it goes quick!

"Dosage" is a term if you want to stay safe and keep something alive - if you want to snuff someone with something, there is no overdose that suddenly tuns him alive, again.

There is an amount that causes jerking, extreme pain and extreme pain. That's why we don't make someone walk the plank over a vat of morphine, that much that quickly would kill you but you would die in a horrific way. The right amount of carbon monoxide makes you sleep, tired with a bit of a headache then you sleep and die. To much and you choke to death in a visually horrific fashion.

[LaCroix]

Oh. Conceeded.

[Borgholio]

I don't understand how it's so hard to get the dosage correct. I've been put under a few times for various minor surgeries and they have a trained professional hook an IV up to my arm, start the drip, have me count backwards from 10 or talk about one of my favorite hobbies or something simple. In the middle of the conversation the lights in the room get all wavy and funky looking but I carry on as nothing had happened. Turns out I had been knocked out clean cold mid-sentence and never knew it. Now if they had bumped up the dosage I never would have woken up. Why can't that be done for executions?

[Tsyroc]

Pretty much all of the drugs mentioned are regularly used during surgery and to intubate people. I'm surprised they don't just have a second or third syringe of some of the sedatives on hand just in case they need more. Just waiting probably makes things worse because midazolam isn't a super long acting drug so the longer they let him writhe the less the sedative is working.

Diluted IV potassium chloride can irritate blood vessels and cause a burning sensation. Undiluted potassium chloride definitely burns. I've spilled a little on a paper cut and it was a lot worse than putting something like lemon juice on it. In the way they are using it here it easily could have been causing pain just by being in his system but the heart stopping part isn't supposed to be all that comfortable either. Kind of like a heart attack.

Hospitals use high doses of potassium chloride to stop the heart for open heart surgery all the time. I don't really get why there seems to be such a high percentage of problems with the same drugs when the prisons try to execute someone. You'd think it would be easier since they are actually trying to kill them instead of trying to save the person's life.

Someone mentioned heroin as an alternative. It's not really commercially available in the US, but I have wondered why they can't use the related drug morphine. It is available in the US and it's cheap. If that isn't potent enough there's hydromorphone, probably not as cheap.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah I always wondered why they used 3 drugs (at great expense from what I understand) to a huge dose of morphine. Hell, go over to the Dignitas clinic, ask what barbiturates mix they use and administer that. Clean and humane.

Of, you know, stand them against a wall and shoot them in the head. Not clean but definitely quick.

[Vejut]

Isn't part of it the fact that they can find very few to no licensed medical professionals to actually perform the procedure due to ethical grounds? I seem to recall reading that somewhere, possibly on this board. That would make a bit of a difference, even before you got into things like people having an unusually high tolerance to one or the other of the drugs involved. A professional anesthesiologist can probably do it no problem, but if all they can get is Jimmy the med student, there's a lot more possibility of screwup.

[LaCroix]

I knew that as a kid, they once needed to knock me out with chloroform (after they let me wait out a couple of hours to let my system clean itself) for a surgery because their usual anaesthetic didn't work at all on me, and they didn't want to give me a higher dose out of fear it would kill me if it would suddenly kick in.

[General Zod]

Isn't part of it the fact that they can find very few to no licensed medical professionals to actually perform the procedure due to ethical grounds? I seem to recall reading that somewhere, possibly on this board. That would make a bit of a difference, even before you got into things like people having an unusually high tolerance to one or the other of the drugs involved. A professional anesthesiologist can probably do it no problem, but if all they can get is Jimmy the med student, there's a lot more possibility of screwup.

A lot of states actually make it illegal for them to participate. Only about half the states have laws that allow doctors to be present during an execution according to this article. The numbers might have shifted a little since 2004, but considering the penalties I doubt most doctors would risk their license to practice or their professional reputation.

[Broomstick]

Hospitals use high doses of potassium chloride to stop the heart for open heart surgery all the time. I don't really get why there seems to be such a high percentage of problems with the same drugs when the prisons try to execute someone. You'd think it would be easier since they are actually trying to kill them instead of trying to save the person's life.

It's because the people doing executions aren't medical professionals. Doctors and related medic types spend many years learning how use these drugs which is why they get consistent results - and even then there ARE accountants of people waking up during the middle of surgery. Modern anesthesia is amazing but it's not perfect.

Real doctors, etc. are not involved in executions in the US because it is viewed as unethical and a violation of professional norms. Any doctor or nurse involved in an execution in the US will have his or her license pulled and will probably never practice legitimate medicine ever again, even if the license is restored, because who the hell wants to be seen by a killer doctor? Doctors are supposed to save lives, not kill people.

Personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty. I don't view it as necessary. I think too often the methods used these days are for the comfort of the viewers, not the efficient and "humane" execution of the condemned. Something like firing squad or guillotine is very efficient but the bloodiness disturbs people. Too fucking bad, if a little blood is going to deter you I guess you really don't want that person dead after all, do you? Having a back-up plan is also a good idea because shit happens.

[Simon_Jester]

I agree with Broomstick; if you are not willing to clean up the mess after an execution, you don't really want that person dead.

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

Better way to do it. Have the cell they await execution in be capable of being gas sealed. Then you give them an injection of a mild sedative or sleep medication, say, ambien or something like along those lines. Maybe Valium. Wait until they are comfortably asleep. Then, you pump pure nitrogen gas into the cell from a container of liquid N2. It is denser than oxygen, so the oxygen will be displaced...

I would not expect nitrogen to be heavier than oxygen. It is, though?

[General Zod]

I agree with Broomstick; if you are not willing to clean up the mess after an execution, you don't really want that person dead.

So why not give giant amounts of heroin or something to these people? Should be a pain free way to die. I guess it's stupid for X reasons but look at the reality of the situation we got here.

Better way to do it. Have the cell they await execution in be capable of being gas sealed. Then you give them an injection of a mild sedative or sleep medication, say, ambien or something like along those lines. Maybe Valium. Wait until they are comfortably asleep. Then, you pump pure nitrogen gas into the cell from a container of liquid N2. It is denser than oxygen, so the oxygen will be displaced...

I would not expect nitrogen to be heavier than oxygen. It is, though?

Denser, but not heavier. You wouldn't think so because its atomic weight is lighter than oxygen.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gas-d ... d_158.html

[Wing Commander MAD]

Sounds like this may be knock-off effect of the refusal of several European chemical manufacturers to sale whatever one of the drugs previously used was. I remember hearing something about a number of states having to resort to new means as a result. I also believe I recall hearing how some states were refusing to disclose the new cocktail, possibly due to using horse tranquilizers or something.

Why is lethal injection preferred? Simple, it's clinical, orderly, and clean. Society is squeamish, just look at how major news networks cover war and how sanitized they make it. Simon and Broomstick have the right of it with regards to the motivation. I doubt it's malice or a general desire to see the prisoner suffer on the part of officials or those witnessing it, though there are bound to be some exceptions. Something else to consider about the use of chemicals versus more traditional means may have something to do with the psychological effects, or at least the perceived ones, on the executioners. Really, the squeamishness with regards to real blood, gore, and violence is rather amusing when you consider how acceptable the fake versions are in the media. Then again we've come along way in actually depicting violence and the consequences of it realistically compared to the past. Just look at old television and movies where characters fall down dead at the slightest touch. I've a long running joke with my mother whenever we watch something like old Alfred Hitchcock movies that people must have died a lot easier back in the day.

[ChaserGrey]

Real doctors, etc. are not involved in executions in the US because it is viewed as unethical and a violation of professional norms. Any doctor or nurse involved in an execution in the US will have his or her license pulled and will probably never practice legitimate medicine ever again, even if the license is restored, because who the hell wants to be seen by a killer doctor? Doctors are supposed to save lives, not kill people.

To go further, many medical professionals consider it an ethics violation to teach these skills to people involved in doing executions. So you have IVs being started by prison guards who have never really been trained how to do it. A lot of those mechanical skills are fairly easy if someone shows you the trick, but pretty damn hard otherwise. Especially if you're only executing a few people a year.

I would not expect nitrogen to be heavier than oxygen. It is, though?

It can definitely happen in an enclosed space. Can't find a citation to anything other than Wikipedia offhand, but just before the first launch of Columbia three technicians were killed when the compartment they were working in was accidentally flooded with gaseous nitrogen.