Two states restarting their death machinery with Fall 2021 lethal injections scheduled for long-dormant execution chambers
In this post last month, I noted that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had set execution dates for seven persons. Long-time readers may recall that Oklahoma last decade had two problematic executions, of Clayton Lockett in 2014 and Charles Warner in 2015, and the state has not had an execution for nearly seven years. A new Oklahoman piece provides details and background regarding the Sooner machinery of death getting restarted under the headline "What we know about Oklahoma resuming executions for the first time since 2015":
Starting Thursday, the state of Oklahoma has scheduled seven execution dates for inmates on death row. It would be the state's first execution in more than six years. In 1977, Oklahoma was the first state to adopt lethal injection, through which an inmate is injected with a fatal mixture of drugs as its primary method for carrying out executions....
The case of Julius Jones has attracted nationwide interest in recent years. No legal defense has disputed the guilt of the other six inmates, but Jones has long maintained his innocence....
The last time Oklahoma executed a death row inmate was Charles Warner in January 2015. Warner and Clayton Lockett, executed in 2014, both died by what were widely criticized as "botched" lethal injections, in which the inmates were not administered the correct mixture of drugs to bring about a quick and humane death.
After Warner's execution, investigators discovered Warner had not been administered the proper drugs. The state's supplier of lethal injection drugs had replaced the heart-stopping drug potassium chloride with potassium acetate, the wrong chemical. Upon this discovery, the state halted all scheduled lethal injections, including that of death row inmate Richard Glossip, who received a stay of his execution from then-Gov. Mary Fallin hours before he was scheduled to die.
The controversy worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court after Glossip and 20 other death row inmates sued in federal court, arguing against the constitutionality of the sedative midazolam. A divided Supreme Court ruled that the state's drug mixture for lethal injections did not violate the "cruel and unusual punishment" amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Glossip, who also has long maintained his innocence for the murder that placed him on death row, has exhausted his appeals but has gained support from bipartisan lawmakers for an independent reinvestigation into his case....
Since the hiatus in 2015, Oklahoma has explored alternative methods of administering the death penalty. Fallin signed legislation allowing nitrogen gas to be used, if lethal injection is rendered unfeasible. After struggling for years to design a proper device and protocol for the use of nitrogen gas, Oklahoma abandoned the idea in 2020 and reverted back to lethal injection, once another supplier for the drugs had been reportedly secured. Oklahoma is one of only three states (the others being Mississippi and Utah) that allow for firing squads to be used as an alternative method, although this has not been done in the state for any of its executions since 1915.
Notably, recent news stories report now on another state gearing up to restarted its execution chamber after nearly a decade. From the AP, "Mississippi prepares for first execution since 2012, corrections commissioner says":
Mississippi prison employees will conduct once-a-week rehearsals as the state prepares for its first execution since 2012, Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain says. Cain told The Associated Press on Friday that the rehearsals for a lethal injection are usually done once a month at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, following a protocol that's about 20 pages long.
The Mississippi Supreme on Thursday set a Nov. 17 execution date for David Neal Cox, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to killing his wife, Kim, in 2010 in the northern Mississippi town of Shannon. Cox withdrew his appeals and once filed court papers calling himself "worthy of death.” Mississippi has not had an execution since 2012, and it had six that year.
Cain confirmed Mississippi has obtained lethal injection drugs, but he declined to say how. “I’m not supposed to talk about the drugs too much,” Cain said. Mississippi is still facing a lawsuit filed in 2015 by the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center on behalf of two inmates. The suit argues Mississippi’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane.
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