This NBC News piece, headlined "Inmate makes joke in last words before execution for killing South Dakota prison guard," reports on the 19th execution in the US in 2018. Here are some of the details:
A South Dakota inmate who killed a correctional officer seven years ago during a failed prison escape on the guard's 63rd birthday was put to death Monday evening, marking the state's first execution since 2012.
Rodney Berget, 56, received a lethal injection of an undisclosed drug for the 2011 slaying of Ronald "R.J." Johnson, who was beaten with a pipe and had his head covered in plastic wrap at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. Berget's execution was the state's fourth since it reinstituted the death penalty in 1979.
It originally was to be carried out at 1:30 p.m. CDT (2:30 p.m. ET), but was delayed for hours while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed a last-minute legal bid to block it. Berget joked in his last words about the wait, saying, "Sorry for the delay, I got caught in traffic."...
Johnson's widow, Lynette Johnson, who witnessed the execution, said her husband experienced "cruel and unusual punishment" but Berget's lethal injection was "peaceful" and "sterile."
"What's embedded in my mind is the crime scene. Ron laid in a pool of blood. His blood was all over that crime scene," she said. "That's cruel and unusual punishment."...
Berget was serving a life sentence for attempted murder and kidnapping when he and another inmate, Eric Robert, attacked Johnson on April 12, 2011, in a part of the penitentiary known as Pheasantland Industries, where inmates work on upholstery, signs, furniture and other projects. After Johnson was beaten, Robert put on Johnson's pants, hat and jacket and pushed a cart loaded with two boxes, one with Berget inside, toward the exits. They made it outside one gate but were stopped by another guard before they could complete their escape through a second gate. Berget admitted to his role in the slaying.
Robert was executed on Oct. 15, 2012. The state also put an inmate to death on Oct. 30, 2012, but that was the last one before Berget's....
Berget's mental status and death penalty eligibility played a role in court delays. Berget in 2016 appealed his death sentence, but later asked to withdraw the appeal against his lawyers' advice. Berget wrote to a judge saying he thought the death penalty would be overturned and that he couldn't imagine spending "another 30 years in a cage doing a life sentence."
The Department of Corrections planned to use a single drug to execute Berget. Policy calls for either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital. Pentobarbital was used in the state's last two executions. South Dakota has not had issues with obtaining the drugs it needs, as some other states have, perhaps because the state shrouds some details in secrecy. Lawmakers in 2013 approved hiding the identities of its suppliers.
Berget was the second member of his family to be executed. His older brother, Roger, was executed in Oklahoma in 2000 for killing a man to steal his car.
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