Executing Executions, Oklahoma Style

(Originally Appeared in The Progressive Populist)

In April 2014, Oklahoma executed Clayton Lockett at The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. 

It was, I wrote at the time in the Tulsa Voice, an absolute sh*t show. 

“He hit the artery and blood started backing up into the IV line,” the paramedic told state investigators … I mean I wasn’t trying to countermand his authority, but he was a little anxious. I don’t think he realized that he hit the artery and I remember saying you’ve got the artery. We’ve got blood everywhere.”

Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, summed it up best — and when doesn’t she? — writing, “Oklahoma killed a man while trying to execute him.”

But that was then and this — well, apparently, still is.

From the AP this past October:

John Marion Grant, 60, who was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber, began convulsing and vomiting after the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was administered. Several minutes later, two members of the execution team wiped the vomit from his face and neck.

The execution of Grant was the first in Oklahoma in six years, because the state turned out to be really bad at putting men to death. Charles Warner, who was supposed to die the same night as Lockett, was spared because the proceedings were such a cock up. The Frontier, an online journal in Tulsa, reported that a retired corrections official, Mike Oakley, commenting on the Lockett execution, recalled, “There was a definite push to make the decision, get it done, hurry up about it.” Warner was eventually put to death in January 2015, crying out at one point, according to witnesses, “My body is on fire.” 

Nine months late, in September, Richard Glossip was about to be executed — he had already had his Final Meal —when authorities discovered they were about to inject him with the wrong drug. Instead of potassium chloride, which is used to stop the heart, Glossip was about to get potassium acetate, which is used to de-ice planes. It was at that point, Fallin and Pruitt put a hold on all executions, not for moral or ethical reasons but because it was getting embarrassing.

The Frontier then discovered that authorities had, in fact, used potassium acetate to kill Warner, which may explain why he felt his body was on fire. State officials at first wouldn’t comment if de-icer was used, but eventually and essentially said, “Oops!” 

And for the love of sepia-toned Movietone of an electric chair, how does that happen? I don’t leave CVS without first checking if the pharmacist gave me the right acid reflux medicine — and officials didn’t take this drug out of the bag until they were about to fill the syringe.

Oklahoma, which ranks highest per capita in execution rates in the country and proportion of those imprisoned — We’re No. 1 — currently has 46 people on death row, including six who are scheduled to die in the next few months. Governor Kevin Stitt, who’s pro-life, along with Attorney General, John O’Connor, who’s pro-life, support the resumption of executions and were thrilled when SCOTUS, days before Grant’s execution, lifted the stay on his execution, ruling the state’s three-drug protocol did not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.” Back in 2015, some Oklahoma death row inmates brought a similar case to SCOTUS, arguing that one of the state’s cocktail’s components, the sedative midazolam, didn’t work in preventing pain and suffering. 

Writing for the majority at the time, Associate Justice Samuel Alito told them to walk it off.

“And because some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution, we have held that the Constitution does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain. After all, while most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune. Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether.”

Rather monstrous, n’est-ce pas?

And midazolam is still being used.

Now, with a nod from SCOTUS, as well as being able to find a reliable supplier— no easy task, as pharmaceutical companies are not keen on their products being used for such matters — state officials are in no mood to quibble over details.

According to the Washington Post, Oklahoma’s Department of Corrections Director Scott Crow defended the execution of Grant, explaining what the prisoner experienced was “dry heaving,” not “convulsions.”

Well, sure, when you put it like that.

Previous director, Joe Allbaugh — yes, the same Joe Allbaugh, who was not only George W. Bush’s FEMA director (And didn’t that go well?), but a senior advisor to then-presidential candidate (the now berserk) Rudy Giuliani — resigned last year after getting crossways with Stitt on who should be running the Oklahoma prison system. (Tough to know who not to root for sometimes.) Allbaugh did remark recently that prison administrators and staff have worked for several years to upgrade the death chamber and train for these moments.

“I am hopeful and prayerful,” he said, “that they will have a successful event.”

Yeah … event.

One last thing: on Nov. 17, Stitt, after “prayerful consideration,” canceled the execution of Julius Jones hours before it was to occur, which was heartless enough considering it had been scheduled for over a month, but then also ordered that Jones would not be allowed to even apply for a commutation, pardon or parole for the rest of his life. God, apparently, was quite specific in answering the governor’s prayer. O’Connor, the attorney general, then announced he was disappointed — his word — in the governor’s decision . . . not to execute Jones.

It’s how we roll in Oklahoma.

Barry Friedman is a satirist in Tulsa, Okla., and a lot of people are saying he is doing some very good work there. He is author of at least four books, including “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later” and “The Joke Was On Me: A Comedian’s Memoir.” See barrysfriedman.com.

(From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2021)