“At the end of the day, the drugs that were used to execute inmate [Clayton Derrell] Lockett for the crimes he committed worked,” said Public Safety Department Commissioner Michael Thompson at a press conference last week to announce the findings of a review into the April 29 execution that made national headlines after it took 43 minutes to kill Lockett.
In the review from the Public Safety Department, recommendations were made to provide better training to execution team members, improve communication and not have multiple executions in one night, which Gov. Mary Fallin later said she agreed with.
Critics of the state’s handling of the execution said the report was insufficient but did show a need for improvement.
“The report details extreme carelessness, lack of appropriate preparation, and slipshod decision-making by some of those charged with carrying out the most tremendous expression of our state government’s power,” said Brady Henderson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s next scheduled execution is set for Nov. 13, when Charles Warner, who was convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-month-old infant, is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection.
