Oklahoma Attorney General Asks Court To Halt All Executions In His State

Glossip was scheduled to die at 3 p.m. on Wednesday when it was learned that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections did not have the specific drugs identified in execution protocol.

Family members of death row inmate Richard Glossip, from left, … “I had to tell the family, that we were done, we didn’t have any more bullets in our gun so to speak”, Knight said.

“That new protocol came out last September”, Moreno said. State law prohibits prison officials from revealing the supplier of the drugs.

Doctors tried to administer three lethal drugs to Lockett, but 20 minutes into the execution, he was still not dead, writhing and bucking on the execution table as he bled all over the floor.

The U.S. Supreme Court also refused to block the execution Wednesday, just before Fallin issued her stay. The drugs that were assembled before that execution was called off were never removed from a sealed box, corrections officials said.

The Corrections Department reached out immediately to the attorney general’s office after realizing the mistake, Weintz said.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt has filed paperwork asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the execution of Benjamin Cole, scheduled for October 7, 2015, plus the executions of John Marion Grant and Richard Glossip over the next month due to questions about the drugs.

There are three drugs in the cocktail one of which is potassium chloride, but in Glossip’s case, the state somehow ended up with potassium acetate.

Oklahoma has two more executions planned in upcoming weeks.

Does that same-day delivery contradict the execution protocol? The concern was that officials were following the letter of the execution protocol, which had been the subject of litigation and called for potassium chloride, not potassium acetate.

According to the National Institutes of Health, potassium acetate and potassium chloride both can be used in medical settings to treat low levels of potassium, which helps regulate heart rhythms, blood pressure and kidney function.

Prieto’s attorneys said at a court hearing Thursday they want more information about the drugs, which were obtained from Texas’ prison system, to ensure they won’t bring about a painful death.

Patton said he was informed by the provider of the chemicals, whom he would not identify, that the potassium acetate “was an acceptable substitution”.

Oklahoma has been considering other execution methods, including bringing back the gas chamber, after a string of botched lethal injection executions, including the disturbing death of inmate Clayton Lockett in 2014 that was likened to “a scene from a horror movie.”

Glossip, convicted of hiring a hit man to murder a motel owner, would have been the second inmate put to death on Wednesday in the United States after Georgia executed its first woman in seven decades, Kelly Gissendaner, in the early morning. “For one year, this department has said they have fixed their problems and they have everything together and theyre prepared and theyve reviewed and changed and made revisions, and then this happens.”. “We knew at that point our chances in court were over”. They have produced two witnesses who served time with Mr. Sneed, who claim that Mr. Sneed stated he acted alone, doing it for money.