Three Oklahoma death-row inmates get reprieve following drug mixup

The executions of Richad Glossip, Benjamin Cole, and John Grant have been postponed indefinitely.

|
Sue Ogrocki/AP
Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton gives a statement to reporters in the media center at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla., Sept. 30. Oklahoma's highest criminal court unanimously agreed Friday, to halt all of the state's scheduled executions after the state's prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week.

Oklahoma has temporarily ceased all scheduled executions after receiving the wrong drug for lethal injections this week.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal court in Oklahoma, granted a request to stay execution indefinitely for three death row inmates. The stay was requested after the Oklahoma Department of Corrections received the wrong drug before a lethal injection.

Hours before Mr. Glossip was to be executed by lethal injection, prison officials recognized that they had received potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride. Potassium chloride is a key drug used in Oklahoma’s 3-drug, lethal-injection formula.

The potassium chloride in the lethal injection formula stops the heart from beating. Officials were not confident that the potassium acetate would have had the desired effect. For a state that overhauled their execution protocols after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who writhed in agony for 40 minutes after being injected, correct protocol for lethal injections is nonnegotiable. Attorney General Scott Pruitt quickly requested a stay of execution until the issue could be investigated. 

Oklahoma Department of Corrections Direction Robert Patton said the new protocols were followed. The attorney general disagreed.

“Until my office knows more about these circumstances and gains confidence that DOC can carry out executions in accordance with the execution protocol, I am asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to issue an indefinite stay of all schedule executions,” Mr. Pruitt said in a statement.

The three inmates affected are Mr. Glossip, Benjamin Cole, and John Grant. Mr. Glossip was convicted for arranging the death of his employer, Mr. Cole of killing his 9-month-old daughter, and Mr. Grant of stabbing a cafeteria worker to death.

The stay in execution over lethal drug related issues is an increasingly frequent trend in states that allow the death penalty. Thursday, Alfredo Prieto became the first inmate executed since 2013 in Virginia after the court refused a stay of execution Prieto’s attorneys filed over suspicion of the quality of drug used.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Three Oklahoma death-row inmates get reprieve following drug mixup
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/1002/Three-Oklahoma-death-row-inmates-get-reprieve-following-drug-mixup
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe