OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin named a member of her Cabinet on Wednesday to lead a review of how the state conducts executions after a botched procedure that the White House said fell short of the humane standards required.
Fallin said Clayton Lockett, who had an apparent heart attack 43 minutes after the start of an execution in which the state was using a new drug combination for the first time, had his day in court.
“I believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes against their fellow men and women,” Fallin said. “However, I also believe the state needs to be certain of its protocols and its procedures for executions and that they work.”
Lockett convulsed violently and tried to lift his head after a doctor declared him unconscious, and prison officials halted the execution. Fallin said “an independent review” would be effective and appropriate.
The governor said the review, to be led by Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Thompson, will focus on Lockett’s cause of death and that an independent pathologist will make that determination. The review will also look at whether the department followed the current protocol correctly and will include recommendations for future executions.
Lockett, 38, had been declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state’s new lethal injection combination was administered Tuesday. Three minutes later, he began breathing heavily, clenching his teeth. The blinds were lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching, and the state’s top prison official later halted the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack shortly thereafter, the Department of Corrections said. Officials later blamed a ruptured vein for the problems with Lockett’s execution.
Previously, most executions in Oklahoma, which used different fast-acting barbiturates, were completed and the inmate declared dead within about 10 minutes of the procedure’s start.
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