Double execution scheduled in Oklahoma
McALESTER, Okla. - Oklahoma is preparing to use a new lethal injection formula on two death row inmates who are scheduled to die in the state's first double execution since 1937.
Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner both are scheduled to be executed Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
It is the first time in nearly 80 years that two men have been executed on the same day in Oklahoma -- though it has happened in other states since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The last double execution was in Texas in 2000.
It is also the first time Oklahoma has used the sedative midazolam as the first in a three-drug combination.
Lockett and Warner had sued the state over the secrecy of its execution protocol, and Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish last month struck down the state's execution law in a ruling that said the protocol that prevented the inmates from seeking information about the drugs used in lethal injections violated their rights under the state constitution.
The state changed its execution protocol on March 21 to allow five different potential drug combinations for execution by lethal injection. The state informed lawyers for the inmates on April 1 that the inmates would be executed using a combination of midazolam, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride never before used in the state. Executions have been conducted using the drug combination in Florida with lower doses.
But a request for a stay filed April 21 said the inmates "have received no certifications, testing data, medical opinions, or other evidence to support the state's insistence that these drugs are safe, or to prove that they were acquired legally." The Oklahoma Supreme Court subsequently stayed the executions of Lockett and Warner.Lockett was initially scheduled to be executed for the 1999 shooting death of 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman on April 22.
Warner is scheduled to be executed for the 1997 death of his roommate's 11-month-old daughter.
Oklahoma and other states that have the death penalty have been scrambling for substitute drugs, or new sources for drugs for lethal injections after major drug makers - many based in Europe with longtime opposition to the death penalty - stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.