Oklahoma: End Barbaric Lethal Injections | Human Rights Watch

Oklahoma: End Barbaric Lethal Injections | Human Rights Watch:

(Washington, DC) – Oklahoma should end its failed experiment with the death penalty. On the evening of April 29, 2014, during an attempt to execute Clayton Lockett by lethal injection, he appeared to regain consciousness. Witnesses reported that Lockett began to mumble, calling out “man” and “something’s wrong,” tried to lift his head, and began to go into a seizure. Lockett died of a heart attack 40 minutes after the execution had begun.

“People convicted of crimes should not be test subjects for a state’s grisly experiments,” said Antonio Ginatta, US advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Last night’s botched execution was nothing less than state-sanctioned torture.”

Lockett, 38, had been convicted of killing Stephanie Neiman in 1999.

The execution chamber of the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.