In September 2009, Romell Broom’s execution was stopped by Ohio’s governor after an execution team tried for two hours to find a suitable vein. Broom said he was stabbed with needles at least 18 times, the pain so excruciating he cried and screamed. He was returned to death row where he still resides, the only “lucky” survivor of a botched execution.
On Tuesday in Oklahoma Clayton Lockett also survived a lethal injection. Almost. Having been declared unconscious from the first of the three drugs in the lethal cocktail, he had begun to twitch and gasp. He called out "man" and "something's wrong" before a doctor abandoned the attempt to kill him. Lockett then died of a heart attack. The second scheduled execution, of Charles Warner, was put off for 14 days.
Lockett’s death was the second botched execution this year. In January, Dennis McGuire in Ohio lasted 25 minutes of choking and gasping before dying. As in Lockett’s execution, midazolam, used in five other executions this year, was the executioners’ drug of choice.
The issues of botched executions and the constitutional prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment have now become central to the legal battle against the death penalty in the 32 US states which maintain the practice. The refusal of EU companies and states on ethical grounds to supply the drugs has seen supplies dry up and states scrambling to find alternative reputable suppliers and alternative drugs – the first four executions this year were carried out using four different cocktails.
The result has been a deluge of cases to require states to reveal their drug sources and what drugs they intend to use. State supreme courts in five states have or will face hearings on drugs secrecy. In Oklahoma, although the immediate cause of the botched execution was “vein failure”, Lockett’s lawyers had spent weeks in the courts delaying the execution while attempting to identify the drug sources. The brutal manner of his death is certain to prompt many more challenges elsewhere.