Oklahoma plans to use the same drug combination when it resumes the death penalty as it did in the troubled executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, and the near execution in 2016 of Richard Glossip.
The last execution in Oklahoma was five years ago today. State agencies have begun to discuss ways to resume capital punishment, but difficulties abound and it’s unclear if executions will begin again in 2020.
It’s been five years since the botched Clayton Lockett execution. A lot has happened since then.
I was worried about transcribing the man’s last words accurately, but in the end no one seemed to care what he said or what happened that night.
The night began when Cary Aspinwall and I, both working for the Tulsa World at the time, piled into my SUV along with World photographer John Clanton for the drive to McAlester.
Other DA candidates also offer support for capital punishment as Oklahoma grapples with ensuring past errors aren’t repeated.
There is no timeline for how the case will proceed, but briefs will likely be submitted to the high court through the summer, with oral arguments to occur in autumn, and a decision by the court being issued by June 2019, an Oklahoma AG’s Office spokesman said Monday.
A spokesman for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said Thursday that the state will seek to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
