On April 29 this year, Clayton Darrell Locket, who was convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping in 2000, died of heart attack 43 minutes after he was administered an untested mixture of drugs during his botched execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
The execution went so bad that there were attempts to cancel it before it was done. Executioners had to close the viewing gallery curtains as the inmate writhed and convulsed, concealing what was later described by the prison warden as a bloody mess.
Locket's botched execution along with two others that occurred in Arizona and Ohio this year had those opposing the death penalty hope that supporters of lethal injection would change their mind, but these failed executions did nothing to dampen support for capital punishment.
In October, officials in Oklahoma presented a newly renovated execution unit at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, which underwent $104,000-worth of renovation following Lockett's botched execution. The state is also set to resume the killing of inmates by next month.
Lethal injection already poses problems because the drugs used become more difficult to procure as the drug companies that manufacture them are no longer willing to sell them. Doctors are also no longer willing to administer the drugs for ethical reasons.
Prolonged executions and issues in securing lethal injection drugs, however, did nothing to stop states from administering death penalties. Instead, states have been exploring other ways of killing inmates, including the use of gassing methods.
Tennessee passed a legislation that reinstated the use of electric chair once drugs that are used in lethal injection cannot be procured. Utah, on the other hand, is reinstating death penalty by firing squad. Oklahoma is also apparently not contented with the upgrades in the prison equipment used for killing inmates by lethal injection. It has also explored the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.
The state's Republican-led House is expected to consider a legislation that would legalize the use of hypoxia by gas for execution, which could make Oklahoma the first state in the country to adopt the method that involves the forced deprivation of oxygen as a legal way of imposing capital punishment on convicted criminals.
"I think we had a little flash of hope that it would help our cause, but all it did was generate a lot of conversation about it," says Lydia Polley, from the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "It just led to people thinking of better ways to kill them."
