Oklahoma courts battle over secrecy surrounding lethal drugs to inject in condemned

The Atlantic had detailed the chaos between two courts in Oklahoma over the lethal injection-secrecy issues surrounding the executions of two death row prisoners. Clayton Lockett is scheduled to die tomorrow for murdering teenager Stephanie Neiman in 1999, while Charles Warner was set to be executed a week later for of raping and murdering a baby in 1997.

The battle over lethal injection secrecy began when the two jointly filed a legal action against the state to release information about the drugs to be used on them to carry out their executions. The men's lawyers argued in court that under the Eight Amendment, they have the right to know to ensure that the state will not violate the "cruel and unusual" punishment clause.

The Atlantic said that the battle over the lethal injection secrecy was not so much about the drugs and the supplier the state has gotten the drugs to use in the killing, but more on the technical aspects of the case. Both the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals agree that a stay on the executions was necesarry as the men have a valid claim in the issue at hand. However, the two courts reportedly could not decide which of them has the authority to enter a stay. The paper noted that the state Supreme Court claimed OCCA can, while OCCA said they cannot as the plaintiffs have not filed its claim there. Further complicating the matters is that Lockett and Warner said they could not challenge the protocol without the information they have been looking for.

Lockett and Warner's concerns about the drugs to be used stemmed from actual lethal injection cases wherein the condemned had suffered due to an unexpected reaction from the drug prior to their deaths. Because of the cases, the Obama administration had signed the Drug Quality and Security Act into law to regulate the industry supplying the US states with the cocktail of drugs used in lethal injections.

The technical deadlock over the case, sadly, will not allow Lockett and Warner what they need to know prior to their deaths. The Atlantic pointed out that the United States Supreme Court has been silent onn the matter, and may allow states to execute one condemned after another before resolving the true issue at heart.

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Oklahoma Supreme Court, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, lethal injection drug secrecy

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