Lawsuit on behalf of executed man calls him "human lab rat"
OKLAHOMA CITY - The brother of an Oklahoma inmate whose botched execution last spring led to a moratorium while the state reconsidered its lethal injection protocols has filed a civil rights lawsuit.
In his lawsuit sent Monday to U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, Gary Lockett says the April 29 execution of Clayton Lockett violated his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The lawsuit also alleges that the execution, which took nearly an hour to complete, contradicted international law and "elementary concepts of human decency."
"The barbaric spectacle was a disgrace to the people of the United States of America and brought shame to the state of Oklahoma," Gary Lockett contends.
The suit, which was filed on behalf of Clayton Lockett's estate, further contends that by using a new lethal injection formula, Lockett was "cast in the unwitting role of human lab rat."
Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer, writhed on the gurney, mumbled and strained to lift his head during the execution. Executions typically take about 10 minutes to complete, but officials called a halt to Lockett's execution about 30 minutes into it because it was obvious something was wrong. He was declared dead 43 minutes after the procedure began, and although the doctor who oversaw the execution said at the time that he died of a heart attack, the official state autopsy determined that the drugs killed him.
It was the first execution in which Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam as part of a three-drug lethal injection combination. A state Department of Public Safety investigation determined that the problems during the botched execution were caused by the poor placement of a single intravenous line, not the drugs. DPS said the poorly placed IV line resulted in the drugs being pumped into Lockett's muscle tissue, instead of directly into his bloodstream.
Since Lockett's execution, the state's execution protocols have been rewritten to include more training and better equipment for the execution team, and the amount of midazolam used in a lethal injection has been increased by five times. Oklahoma's next scheduled execution is Nov. 13, but attorneys for the state last week requested a delay of at least another 60 days to give prison officials more time to obtain the necessary drugs and train the execution team.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Gov. Mary Fallin, Oklahoma prison officials, members of the execution team, the manufacturers of the drugs used to kill Clayton Lockett, and the compounding pharmacies that mixed them. The lawsuit seeks an award of damages for the "physical and psychological suffering" inflicted upon Lockett, as well as attorney fees and costs.
Clayton Lockett was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999.