UPDATE: On Friday, April 14, 2017, a state circuit court entered a temporary stay of the scheduled executions and set additional hearings for Tuesday, April 18.
Almost three years ago, Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner were scheduled for execution in Oklahoma on the same night. You might remember that it didn鈥檛 go well. Of the two, only Lockett was killed that evening, and the manner of his death 鈥� the 鈥� still haunts us. Our state government spent many months on investigations and lawsuits stemming from its cruelty.
Now across our eastern border, we see a governor planning seven executions with the same recipe: a failed drug called midazolam, an accelerated schedule of two executions a day, and a complex procedure involving multiple drugs that really shouldn鈥檛 be rushed. Over here in Oklahoma, we鈥檝e lived Arkansas鈥檚 future, and we don鈥檛 recommend it.
Gov. Hutchinson鈥檚 goal is to use his supply of midazolam before it expires on April 30. This drug is unfit for executions because it can鈥檛 reliably put someone into a steady, deep, coma-like sleep 鈥� a state necessary to prevent the severe pain that comes with the drugs injected later. We know this firsthand in Oklahoma.
On April 29, 2014, our state corrections staff gave midazolam to Clayton Lockett. When they thought he had lost consciousness, they administered the drugs that cause extraordinary pain. Just three minutes after declaring him unconscious, corrections staff saw Lockett begin to move under the gurney鈥檚 straps. He clenched his teeth. He writhed, and he talked.
Midazolam wasn鈥檛 the only problem that night. Corrections staff took 51 minutes and to insert Lockett鈥檚 IV, before finally placing it in Lockett鈥檚 groin. The line became dislodged at some point in the execution. We don鈥檛 know when because the supervising doctor noticed only after Lockett was visibly struggling. At that point, the doctor ordered staff to draw the curtain, blocking the witnesses鈥� view of the execution. He tried to push the IV back in but punctured Lockett鈥檚 artery instead. It was 鈥渁 bloody mess,鈥� in the words of the warden.
Prison officials frantically called the governor鈥檚 general counsel, and the head of the Department of Corrections eventually stopped the execution. Lockett died ten minutes later. Because Lockett鈥檚 execution was so terribly botched, the Department of Corrections postponed Charles Warner鈥檚 execution. He was executed more than a year later.
Our state鈥檚 Department of Public Safety concluded that the staff鈥檚 errors came from the stress of trying to pull off two executions in one night. As a result, we now separate executions by at least a week. Gov. Hutchinson鈥檚 plan for Arkansas 鈥� lethal injection for seven people in ten days, at a rate of two per day 鈥� seems doomed for failure and scandal.
In Oklahoma, the botched execution of Clayton Lockett consumed our government and our courts for more than a year. We had internal reviews, external investigations, reports, lawsuits, and more 鈥� all because our governor had gone ahead with a risky plan for putting someone to death. She gambled with torture, and she lost. Big.
Even before Lockett and Warner鈥檚 scheduled execution date, our governor knew that midazolam was unreliable in lethal injection. Four months earlier, Dennis McGuire鈥檚 execution in Ohio took far longer than it should have. He gasped, snorted, and choked throughout. The evidence against midazolam since then has only grown, with the botched executions of Joseph Wood in Arizona the same year as Lockett鈥檚 and of Roland Smith Jr. in Alabama this past December.
Arkansas can avoid the disaster ahead. Gov. Hutchinson should call off his plan for seven executions by lethal injection and let his midazolam expire.
