Oklahoma City, Okla. — (KFOR) A new article raises ethical concerns about Oklahoma’s search for execution drugs, as well as the state’s law that conceals the source and reliability of the drugs – pentobarbital and vecuronium bromide.
The Colorado Independent claims state officials once bought 20 rounds of pentobarbital for $40,000, with a check from a petty cash account that shields the identity of the seller.
The investigation claims in response to a Texas request on how to deal with the drugs’ scarcity, an Assistant Attorney General e-mailed a colleague saying “Oklahoma might cooperate in exchange for much sought-after 50-yard-line tickets to the red river rivalry” (OU-Texas football game).
I dont know if they were joking or serious, but regardless, I think we need to expect more from our public officials, Madeline Cohen, an assistant federal public defender who is representing death row inmate Charles Frederick Warner, said Wednesday, especially when theyre dealing with a matter of such seriousness as taking a human life.
The article also references records that show executioners allegedly injected remaining drugs into convicts dead bodies for disposal purposes.
Two Oklahoma executions have been delayed a month while state officials round-up the execution drugs they were planning to use Thursday.
Where they get the drugs, however, is kept secret.
Cohen is pushing for full transparency of the source and reliability of these execution drugs.
When inmate Michael Lee Wilson was being executed by injection in January, he reportedly said I feel my whole body burning.
That freaked us out and it freaked our clients out, Cohen said.
Warners execution has been delayed until April, along with the execution of Clayton Derrell Lockett, because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled the state needed more time to obtain the necessary execution drugs.
But Cohen is worried Warner and Lockett could also suffer during their executions because, by law, the state doesnt have to reveal who made the drugs.
The protection against cruel and unusual punishment in the constitution is not about the criminals, Cohen said. Its about all of us as a society.
Lockett was convicted of torturing, shooting and burying alive 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 1999.
Warner was convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriends 11-month old baby, Adriana Waller, in 1997.
Read More: http://bit.ly/1iGKiUe
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.