After botched killing of inmate, Oklahoma ponders new path for death row

Oklahoma’s last execution went so badly that the state tried to cancel it before it was over. With the inmate writhing while the lethal drugs seeped into his body, his executioners drew the viewing gallery curtains, concealing what the warden later described as “a bloody mess”.

The botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April and other troubling ones this year in Ohio and Arizona gave opponents of capital punishment a flicker of hope that areas of the country that most enthusiastically support the death penalty might have a change of heart. They didn’t.

Although governor Mary Fallin suspended further executions so Lockett’s death and Oklahoma’s methods could be reviewed, the state held what amounted to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its overhauled death chamber only months later and is scheduled to resume killing inmates in mid-January. And rather than causing states to question whether capital punishment is just or worth the risk of subjecting someone to a potentially agonising death, the prolonged executions and problems that states have had securing lethal injection drugs have led them to explore new, old, and more efficient ways of killing, including gassing inmates.