tv Death Row Stories CNN February 2, 2020 9:00pm-10:00pm PST
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>> i know that seth penalver is a murderer. he may pretend with anybody else that he's talking to and tell whatever story and thump whatever bible he wants to bring in, but that man is a cold-blooded murderer, and he may be acquitted. and he may be free, but he is guilty. on this episode of "death row stories," executions around the country go horribly wrong. >> it was clear something was not right. >> he looked like he was trying to get up off the gurney.
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>> you could see spasm go through his body. >> but when secrets emerge about government executions -- >> you've got people carrying cash in the night across state lines. they want to create the aura that everything is smooth. >> -- the question is asked, does it matter how we put people to death? >> these are evildoers. these are animals. we want justice. >> who cares if he feels pain? >> you are not allowed to experiment on people in killing them. >> we demonstrated again and again and again. >> we make these god-like decisions without god-like skills. >> there's a body in the water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> he needs to pay for it with his life. >> the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may. ♪
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>> from the beginning of recorded history, civilization has sought justice through the ultimate punishment -- death. and as societies have evolved, so, too, have their methods of execution. in ancient rome, prisoners were fed to the lions in front of large amphitheaters of people. in greece, the condemned were sealed inside a bronze bulb, which when set on fire would pour smoke from the nostrils while the person inside roasted to death. in england, prisoners were drawn and quartered with horses pulling people apart, limb by limb. france famously used the guillotine, responding to the chant "off with their heads." for a long time, the method of choice in america was hanging.
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>> in the united states, the first recorded execution was in 1608 in jamestown, virginia. over the years, hangings became great social event, great source of entertainment. people brought picnics. teachers would bring the students. parents would bring the kids. there was a choir, a band. >> executions were public because they were considered a ritual whose goal was to deter the populace. >> but our history of executions also included a dark side. botched executions that quickly turned horrifying for the masses. >> it turns out it's difficult to proper hang someone. if the drop is too long, the person's head would fall off. so somebody invented a machine where the rope would go up to a pulley and boulder was dropped, they called it jerk to jesus or launch to eternity. there was a man named eddie ives.
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eddie weighed only 80 pounds. so the weight drops and he goes kazoom and whirled around the horizontal beam and came crashing down to the ground. they had to hang him twice. there was a lot of concern about botched hangings. that's why the electric chair was brought in. >> by the late 1800s, electricity was transforming america. in order to demonstrate the incredible power of this new phenomenon, thomas edison filmed the execution of an elephant. executioners quickly seized on this modern method of putting the condemned to death. >> one of our first electric appliances was the electric chair. but the electric chair has its own problems. jesse tafarrow was executed in 1990 in the electric chair in florida. a lot of reasonable people believe that he was innocent. there were 8-inch flames that
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erupted from the skull cap during the execution, sew basically burned to death. in 1997, pedro medina was executed. >> flame erupted all across the top of his head, from one ear to the other. >> the warden of florida state prison was quoted as saying, the flames, smoke, putrid odor and death by inferno plagues me still. >> in 1977, lethal injection was invented in oklahoma as a more humane way to execute prisoners. >> historically, executions were very ugly. hangings, electrocution. and so, one of the goals of the state now is that it looks calm and peaceful. >> to a great degree, the lethal injection regime has much more to do with the witnesses than it has to do with the condemned. the witnesses weren't seeing the condemn writhe or cough or choke or snort. >> the challenge with lethal
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injection was finding executioners with the medical skills to do the job. >> today in the united states, it violates ethical codes for physicians to be involved. so usually the people who are involved in the executions are not physicians. and they're not properly trained to do an iv insertion, much less an execution. >> over the years, the issue of medical training led to numerous mistakes, but a watershed moment came in 2009 with the case of ramel broom in ohio. >> just 17 steps from the room where he'd be put to death, ramel broom, convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl 25 years ago was helping his executioners. he laid on his side, flexed his muscles to help them find a vain to inject lethal chemicals. he never made it out of the preparation chamber. >> there were 20 different needle insertions into mr. broom, in all parts of his body, in the back of his hand, in his arm, in his ankle. he was actually trying to help
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them find the vein. >> after two hours, the director of rehabilitation and correction made an unprecedented request. he asked the governor to grant a temporary reprieve. >> ramel broom became the only man in u.s. history to walk away from a lethal injection alive. >> ramel broom is still on death row, but he does not have an execution date. and his attorneys are arguing that you can't try and kill someone twice. >> but corrections officials in ohio were undeterred. they devised a new way to kill ramel broom called plan "b." most executions use one drug to put the inmate to sleep, a second drug to paralyze the inmate and finally a third drug to stop the heart. plan "b" proposed using a drug called midazolam. injected into the muscles to put the prisoner to sleep. and this invention would open a proverbial pandora's box of botched executions, starting with ohio inmate dennis mcguire.
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>> he was a human guinea pig for the state of ohio to experiment on. and it did, in a horrific way. ♪ (vo) in every trip, there's room for more than just the business you came for. ♪ let's make the most of ♪ ♪ what we've been given whether that's getting a taste of where you are... ♪ let's get to living ♪ ...or bringing some of that flavor back home. that's room for possibility. ♪ ♪ let's get to living
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you'd have a lot of dollars. which makes it hard to believe, especially coming from a talking lizard. pip, pip, cheerio! look, all i, dennis quaid, know is that esurance is built to save you dollars without skimping on service. and when they save, you save. the only way to know how much is to get a quote. chances are you'll save time, paperwork, and yes, dollars. when insurance is affordable, it's surprisingly painless. after the failed lethal injection of ramel broom, the state of ohio proposed a new method of execution using midazolam. the medical community had immediate concerns. >> traditionally the first drug was used to induce unconsciousness. midazolam does not do that. if the inmate is not unconscious, and the inmate receives a second drug that paralyzes the muscles, that is a
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horrible, horrible situation where you are awake but you cannot move. you cannot breathe. so you have the sensation of suffocating, essentially. and you can't communicate to anybody that this is happening. >> ohio originally proposed using midazolam as a backup plan, but the controversial drug would soon become their only option. >> tonight, u.s. states are being forced to find new drugs for lethal injections since the european-based manufacturers banned the u.s. from using the drugs to carry out the death sentence. >> the suppliers, most of them in europe where they don't have the death penalty said we will not sell you drugs to kill people. our drugs are not intended to kill people. >> in january 2014, ohio announced they would try their plan "b" drug, midazolam, on inmate dennis mcguire. mcguire had been convicted of the rape and murder of a housewife named joyce stewart. >> he slashed her throat, severed her jugular.
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she was carrying a baby. >> seven months pregnant. >> seven months pregnant. >> the baby suffocated to death as well. >> if you're going to have the death penalty, this guy's the poster child for it, for what he did. >> tim young represented mcguire in his final appeals. >> when we went to court with mr. mcguire we argued that midazolam was likely to leave him in severe pain, almost torture, as if he were drowning or unable to breathe and choking and gasping for air. >> but arguing the dangers of midazolam presented an unnerving catch-22. >> the burden of proof is so high to show that it's going to go bad it actually has to go bad. >> the judge said that this was clearly an experiment. but he likewise said that the inmate was not entitled to a pain free execution. >> the federal court has ruled that they believe the execution will be humane. if i believe that it would not be, we would not be proceeding.
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>> dennis mcguire was led into the execution chamber on january 16, 2014. >> dennis mcguire had a very brief but emotional final statement. he said he was sorry for what he had done, and he apologized to the family. he mentioned the son and daughter who were there and how he loved them. and then the drugs began flowing. it typically would have been five or six, maybe ten minutes, and it would have been all over, but after a few minutes, dennis mcguire beganckg in breath. for 13 minutes, his body was struggling not to die. it was obvious that he was trying to get air into his lungs, and the drugs were preventing it. and 13 minutes doesn't sound like very long. but if you're watching somebody do that with his family there, it's an eternity. it just went on and on and on. and i'll be candid, as a human being, i was at this point, going, please, just let him die.
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let it stop. >> finally, at 10:53 a.m., dennis mcguire was declared dead. >> yesterday, i watched the state of ohio kill my dad. i witnessed his execution along with my wife and my sister. after watching my dad's execution, i know what cruel and unusual punishment is. >> anger bubbled up quickly. this was so foreseeable and so obvious. >> the agony and terror of watching my dad suffocate to death lasted more than 19 minutes. >> i saw him just gasp for his air. his head kept coming up, and he just -- his mouth was wide open, and he was making all kinds of horrible noises. >> we just don't need to do this. there's nothing in the name of the people that justifies this horrible, painful process before dying.
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>> europe's drug ban soon left other states facing their own drug shortages, and despite dennis mcguire's botched execution, lessons from midazolam had yet to be learned. >> after the mcguire execution, i thought there would be no state that would consider using midazolam. they would be moving on. and i have since been disabused of that notion. >> mcguire was predictable and foreseeable. how do you ever go forward after that moment? that's just beyond horrifying to me. irresistible. fancy feast makes delighting your cat delightfully easy. every recipe, every last detail; another fancy way to show your love. fancy feast. introducing savory centers. paté with a center of gravy!
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after the botched execution of dennis mcguire, many thought that the controversial drug midazolam would no longer be used in executions. but less than six months later, arizona announced they would use midazolam on inmate joseph wood. wood was found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her father in 1989. >> we were very aware about what happened with the execution of dennis mcguire, so we asked the department of correction for information about the source of the drugs and the qualifications of the executioners and wardens, and the state of arizona told us to go pound sand. it would not disclose the source of the drugs, and it said, trust us, the people that are going to be doing this are qualified. >> why all the secrecy?
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because i think the departments of corrections would like to take care of this ugly little business in as efficient a way as possible. they have a job to do. they have executions to carry out. if people start raising questions about where the drugs come from, who the doctor is, then it slows down the process. >> joseph wood was taken to the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in florence on july 23rd, 2014. at 1:52 p.m., the state of arizona injected wood with 50 milligrams of midazolam. five times the amount used in ohio. >> mr. wood opened his mouth wide and took a very deep breath. >> suddenly, his mouth popped open. like that. and everybody sort of jumped a little bit. hadn't seen that before. you could see a spasm go through his body. you could see it went all the way down to his stomach. gasping like a fish.
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it was extraordinarily loud. i started doing, you know, hash marks in my notebook. each time that he would make that sucking sound, he was gulping. he was gasping, he was struggling to breathe. >> i eventually counted 240 hash marks. went on and on. and i wondered is someone going to stop this execution. there were two lawyers sitting next to me, and i saw them get up and go out. >> one full hour into the execution, joseph wood was still alive. baish called for the execution to be halted. >> we immediately filed a motion with the federal district court asking the federal judge to stop the execution. >> they got an assistant attorney general on the phone. and he said, he's unconscious. he's not feeling any pain.
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the judge said, well, do you have an eeg set up to him? well, no, we don't. so, you don't know. >> on the call, the assistant attorney general admitted that a second dose of midazolam had now been given to wood. >> what was not reported was that 14 additional doses of the drug were administered while all this was going on. >> nearly all drugs have what we call a ceiling effect. even though joseph wood received a total of 750 milligrams of midazolam, he was breathing and his heart was working for nearly two hours. >> eventually, joseph wood's gasping slowed and it slowed. and eventually it petered out, and it was done. and then finally, it was over. >> after an hour and 57 minutes, joseph wood was finally declared dead, becoming one of the longest executions in u.s. history.
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to many, this was a clear case of cruel and unusual punishment. >> joe wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die. i can't imagine this is what the criminal justice system had hoped for. when they came up with this new drug protocol. >> there was someone from the attorney general's office, it was very peaceful. he was sleeping and snoring. it was, like, no. this is not what it looks like. >> the victim's family had little sympathy for joseph wood. >> everybody here from what i heard said it was excruciating. you don't know what excruciating is, what's excruciating is seeing your father lying there in a pool of blood, your sister lying in a pool of blood. that's excruciating. this man deserved it. >> this man conducted a horrifying murder, and you guys are going, oh, let's worry about the drug. and he was affected. why didn't we give him a bullet, some drano. all you people that think the drugs are bad, well, the hell
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with you guys. >> one of the family members said, what does it matter if it's done with drano? the answer is we don't do that. this is the united states. we have a constitutional amendment that forbids cruel and unusual punishment. we're supposed to be above that. ♪ >> with botched executions now spreading, questions mounted about the fate of the 3,000 people remaining on death row. and with the moral implications falling on those normally hidden behind the curtain, the executioners themselves began to speak out. >> i just felt like the people had the right to know that something has been cloaked in secrecy for years and years and years. i just wanted people to understand. it's not that i couldn't handle it. it's that i couldn't handle what it turned me into. there's room for more than just the business you came for.
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when lethal injection became the standard method of capital punishment, the executioners them self, some with little medical training, suffered unintended consequence. reverend carroll picket witnessed 95 executions at the death house in huntsville, texas. >> we've had guards who would strap people down and faint in the death house. we've had guards come back in to undo the straps and they'd freeze because they can't touch death.
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they come and go quite rapidly. every couple weeks another one changes. and they just couldn't do it. >> the life of an executioner is very much a hidden world. literally shrouded in secrecy. >> filmmaker patty dillon had a directed a film called "there will be no stay." >> the executioners i spent the most time with worked their way up from a correction officer to a major, which is when they became executioners. it was the highest promotion. it just happened to include execution. >> among the executioners patty found were craig baxley and terry bracy who carried out executions at the broad river prison in south carolina. >> the inmate less than just a few feet away. the duty that i had was to take the syringe, screw it in and then do the plunging.
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>> if the inmate does not die within a certain few minutes, then you have to actually do another set. it's not the fact that i couldn't do it. i did it. it's the fact that it changes you psychologically. it changes you into a different person, you know. i was not trained to do it, and it messed me up. >> taking that plunger and pushing it in sort of set me on a particular course that i wasn't really prepared for. i expected to be trained. i expected to be counseled. none of that took place. >> there's still those fundamental christian rules of thou shalt not kill. and they're trapped in their head with this deep, dark secret of, i'm not supposed to be killing people. >> i do believe that if you are taking lives you are a serial killer. i do believe that. but i also look at a serial killer when i look in the mirror. i see a serial killer and there are times when it becomes unbearable.
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>> i have not met anybody on an execution team that was not experiencing some post-traumatic damage. some of them survive and many didn't. many committed suicide. >> the only thing that has kept me from turning into one of these people you see on the news is i have good professional help and medication and my wife and my children. >> these men that we've appointed to keep us safe say i'm the garbage man taking out your trash or what you're considering to be trash. and it's ruining my life. >> the executioners who were in charge of the botched executions in ohio and arizona had largely avoided public scrutiny, but in oklahoma that would change with the case of clayton lockett. >> clayton lockett was convicted of the murder of 18-year-old stephanie kneeman.
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mr. locket shot her with a shog, dug a grave and buried her alive. >> i see her coughing and the dirt coming in the air as she was coughing. >> mr. lockett confessed to the police. he was convicted on 19 counts. he received about 2,500 years, plus the death penalty. >> facing their own shortage from the european draw ban, oklahoma announced they would use midazolam on lockett. and in a rare doubleheader, inmate charles warner to be executed the same night. >> both of these crimes, charles warner's as well as lockett's were horrific. warner raped and murdered a baby. there wasn't a lot of sympathy for either person. the question is whether the process was handled constitutionally improperly. >> susanna represented lockett and warner. >> a law had been passed in oklahoma in 2011 which made the source of drugs completely secret.
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but if my clients are not being rendered unconscious, that's cruel and unusual punishment. so i tried to show that this statute is unconstitutional because it prohibits mr. lockett, mr. warner, anyone from finding out where those drugs came from. >> in fact, she discovered oklahoma had planned to execute lockett and warner with drugs purchased in a potentially illegal manner. >> so correspondence from the attorney general's office admitted that the drugs were coming from a compounding pharmacy, which is not regulated by the fda. >> compounding pharmacies are neighborhood pharmacies in some cases that typically don't do this kind of thing at all. they do small drugs, lotions and creams and other sort of simple things. >> compounding pharmacies don't traditionally make intervenous compounds. that's not what they're for.
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>> nobody oversees what is in the compound, nobody oversees what the drug will do what it's supposed to do. >> if the state of oklahoma is buying drugs from a compounding pharmacy without a doctor/patient relationship then that would mean that they're violating federal law. criminal law. >> in december of 2013, a court in missouri ordered the release of records detailing transaction with a compounding pharmacy in oklahoma. >> officials from the state of missouri department of corrections went to oklahoma to obtain drugs from a compounding pharmacy apparently taking $11,000 in cash and buying it from a company in oklahoma that wasn't licensed to do business in missouri. >> it's like a shady drug deal. suddenly, you've got people carrying cash in the night across state lines so that the public doesn't know how or where $11,000 in taxpayer money was spent? abide by the constitution, in the full light of day, in front
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of everybody like our justice system's supposed to. >> missouri officials were accused of buying drugs from a compounding pharmacy named the apothecary shop in tulsa, oklahoma. e-mail chains also revealed secret agreements between the apothecary shop and prison officials in louisiana and georgia where the pharmacy was unlicensed to do business. >> it's almost a cloak and dagger way of trying to get drugs to use for executions. i think there are reason for the secrecy happening now is states are at the end of their ropes sort to speak. they've tried everything. this is like their last-ditch effort to proceed with executions. >> with less than 24 hours to go, the oklahoma supreme court agreed to hear susanna's argument and granted clayton lockett and charles warner a rare stay of execution. that decision would set off one of the biggest political firestorms in state history.
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>> these are evildoers. these are animals. you can call them demons, if you may. we want justice. at visionworks we guarantee you will see great and look great. "guaranteed" we say that too! you've gotta use these because we don't mean it. buy any pair at regular price, get one free. really! visionworks. see the difference.
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oklahoma supreme court had granted clayton lockett and charles warner a rare stay of execution in order to hear susanna gatony's argument. against secrecy laws that allowed the state to mask their source of execution drugs. political reaction was swift and forceful. >> i believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes against their fellow men and women. >> the very next day, governor fallon issued an executive order which essentially said she didn't believe that the oklahoma supreme court had jurisdiction to do what they did. she was trying to override, usurp what the court had done. >> the governor said the supreme court exceeded its authority. i don't know that's ever happened in oklahoma. and no one really questioned whether she had the authority to do that or not. all the supreme court was really
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asking for was more time for the attorneys in the case to brief these issues. >> reaction also came from state representative and former police officer mike christian who immediately introduced legislation to impeach the judges who voted in favor of lockett and warner. >> well, see, the way i see it these are evil doers, animals. you can call them demons if you may, and the people across this country, in particular oklahoma, we want justice. >> people in oklahoma strongly support the death penalty. they feel we don't spend enough time talking about the victims of these crimes. a 18-year-old girl ends up being savagely duct taped, shot and buried alive. and we're talking about mr. lockett and his rights. >> mike christian is a very pro-death lawyer lawmaker as many are in oklahoma. christian and several others proposed articles of impeachment. at that point we had a major controversy on our hands between our branchs of government. >> faced with impeachment and a battle against the governor, the oklahoma supreme court now had second thoughts.
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>> the very next day, the oklahoma supreme court dissolved their stay. said that the secrecy statute, was constitutional and called our claim frivolous. >> in their ruling, dissolving their own stay, they seemed kind of peeved that this process was rushed. but people are calling for their impeachment. >> i felt very disappointed in myself. i was reminded of something my stepfather, who is a lawyer, told me once when i was in law school stressing. he said to me, susanna, just remember, no matter what you do, no one will die. and in this instance, that wasn't true. >> at the oklahoma state penitentiary on april 29, 2014, clayton lockett was led to the execution chamber while charles
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warner waited in the wings. zeva bransetter witnessed lockett's execution. >> it was my fourth execution to witness. it was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. eventually, they roll up the shade at 6:20. lockett was asked if he had a last statement, and he just said no. >> at 6:23 p.m., lockett was injected with midazolam to render him unconscious. >> at 6:31, the doctor checked consciousness, and the warden announced that the inmate was still conscious. a few minutes later, the doctor checked consciousness again and said the inmate is unconscious. >> a second drug was injected intended to paralyze lockett. >> at 6:33, i noticed a reaction. there was a kicking of his leg. clayton lockett began to strain against the restraints.
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his body began to kind of buck. he was struggling and writhing. he looked like he was trying to get up off the gurney to me. it was really very shocking. it was clear to me that clayton lockett was still conscious. it was clear to me that he was in pain. i heard him say, man, you know, like he was shocked at whatever it was that he was feeling. and he was lifting his head up and shoulders clear off the gurney, mumbling something is wrong. and then the warden said, ladies and gentlemen we need to temporarily close the blinds. and they closed the blinds and shut off the mike. >> i sat next to the victim's family at the execution. no one knew if he had died or if he lived or what was happening. they were concerned about that. >> the attorneys who are witnessing this on behalf of clayton lockett said they're going to revive him so they can kill him another day.
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>> the blinds would not reopen. and at 6:56 p.m., clayton lockett's execution was officially halted. >> we were taken back to the media witness center, but there was no clear discussion of what was going on with clayton lockett. >> is lockett dead? >> we don't know. >> we don't know the status. >> we don't know the status. >> breaking news from the state prison in mcallister. >> the first of two scheduled executions at the prison did not go as planned. >> clayton lockett was supposed to receive the death penalty for killing a woman 15 years ago. but tonight his punishment is being referred to as a botched execution. >> things obviously went horribly wrong with mr. lockett's execution. >> my assistant reached me and told me that i needed to turn on a tv to see what was happening. the reports were that he was still alive. >> at 7:23 p.m., the man in charge of lockett's execution,
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department of corrections director robert patton, addressed the media. >> ladies and gentlemen, i'm going to make a short statement, and i'll not be taking any questions. so please don't scream and holler at me. as those inside witnessed, the drugs are not having the effect. so the doctor observed the line and determined that the line had blown. it was my decision at that time to stop the execution. at approximately 7:06 hours, inmate suffered what appears to be a massive heart attack and passed away. >> why did you decide to lower the curtain? >> so the physician could check the vein. >> 7:06? >> the vein blew. >> the vein? >> yes. >> lockett's vein? >> yes. >> blew. what does that mean? >> what does that mean? >> it means the vein exploded. >> his vein exploded? >> yes. >> he said his vein exploded, which i thought was a really
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strange explanation because veins don't generally explode. >> the truth would only be revealed after months of investigation. but in the meantime, just down the hall from the death chamber charles warner had eaten his last meal. warner's family and lawyers were now told that his execution would proceed. after being a part of millions of love stories... at kay we've learned the most important one... will always be your own. every yes. oh my gosh, yes begins with kay. now, get twenty to forty percent off all bridal. only at kay. (vo) in every trip, there's room for more than just the business you came for. ♪ this wave is rolling, let's get going ♪ ♪ we got places to be ♪ hey-ey-ey (vo) whether that's taking in every moment... ♪ ...or capturing a moment worth bringing back.
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after the botched execution of clayton lockett, charles warner, scheduled to die immediately after, was left in the dark. his family waited to attend the execution. >> the family was very, very deep in prayer. the mother of course was sobbing through her prayers. it was very sad. we waited for a long time. it became time for charles' execution and we were still sitting in that room and nobody was telling us anything. then another attorney came rushing into our room and said there was not going to be an execution for charles warner that night. the family was crying with joy. mrs. warner said, you know, those prayers were heard by a higher being. we were so relieved.
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>> but the mood soon turned sour as prison officials seemed confused about what exactly was going on. >> we were going to go home. we were led out to the parking lot and we started to get in the car. well, out of the building ran the warden yelling at us, get back into this building. you're breaking protocol. you have to get back into the building. >> prison officials now told warner's family the execution would proceed. >> i was horrified. we went back into the building and then we sat there for a while, not knowing if charles warner would be executed. i was angry and perplexed. it was too late to go file anything in the court. we had no phone. finally at some point we were told charles warner would not be executed and we were told to go home. it was an incredible roller coaster of emotions.
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>> investigations into the botched executions of clayton lockett revealed what happened behind the blinds. >> we learned that the doctor that was supposed to perform the execution had backed out and a doctor stepped in. the doctor made 12 attempts to start an i.v. and it was not properly inserted. the drugs were not delivered into his vein. they went into the tissue. there was no backup drugs that night, there was no emergency plan if something went wrong. >> regarding the use of midazolam, the correction department said i looked online went past wikileaks. and i did find out midazolam would rend are a person unconscious so we thought it was okay. >> obviously they need someone who is better equipped at
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knowing if someone is rendered unconscious. >> after hitting an artery causing lockett's blood to spray, the doctor who executed lockett said he hoped to, quote, get enough money out of this to go buy a new jacket. >> what happened in oklahoma is deeply troubling. >> clayton lockett's case would bring worldwide attention to america's botched executions and questions about the future of lethal injection. >> human rights outrage. >> after botching the delivery of a enough untested combination of drugs -- >> clayton lockett was said to be shaking uncontrollably 20 minutes after the first drug was administered. >> you've got amateur hour going on here, having someone poorly trained, brew up something in the back in the kitchen saying i never tried this before, let's see how it goes. >> and voices on both sides of the issue responded forcefully. >> the fact that there may be
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some pain during the process does not offend, i don't think it offends most people in oklahoma. why were we designing the most pleasant death possible for people who have imposed the most unpleasant death possible? >> i want them to sit back and think if that was your child, would you have sympathy? >> it took two hours for this man to die. this guy snored on his way to hell. >> it wasn't an execution. this man was killed by malpractice of a doctor, who was killed by negligence of the states. >> the death penalty is a government program and the government takes a week to deliver a piece of mail. what gives us the idea that the government can make life-and-death decisions with life-and-death accuracy. >> lockett should be given the same mercy he gave his victim, stephanie, and that would be none. >> our constitutional rights are with us until we die. we shouldn't dismiss them because we think the person who is being executed isn't deserving. >> we are saying to the world
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this is done as a considered, thoughtful moment of punishment, not as some rageful, heinous act. if that's the punishment we're imposing, then we're him, we're the heinous murderer. >> time is running out for convicted killer charles warner, set to die at 6 p.m. in the state's first execution since last april. >> nine months after clayton lockett's execution, oklahoma completed construction on a brand enough death chamber, which they were now ready to use on charles warner. >> a microphone will come on and the staff member will read the warrant execution to the offender and the offender will be allowed to make a last statement. the first drug in the three-drug protocol, midazolam will be administered.
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>> warner's defense team filed one last plea for a stay of execution with the u.s. supreme court. claiming the use of the drug was cruel and unusual punishment. meanwhile the mother of warner's victim, an 11-month-old baby made her feelings clear. >> if they want to honor me, they will give him life in prison without the possibility of parole. i don't see any justice in sentencing someone to die. to me the justice is in someone living with what they have done to you and your family, having to live with that the rest of their life knowing they'll never walk out those bars. when he dies i want it to be because it's his time, not because of what happened to me and my child. i don't want that on my hands. it make me feel like i'm no different than him and i don't want to feel that way. >> the time for warner's execution came and went as oklahoma waited for word from the u.s. supreme court about whether they could use midazolam on warner.
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at 6:20 p.m., the decision came down. justice sonia sotomayor wrote the food and drug administration has not approved the use of midazolam. the eighth amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected to an execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death. but justice sotomayor's opinion was in the minority. >> ladies and gentlemen, the u.s. supreme court has denied the stay of execution. the process will begin shortly. i need the witnesses to prepare themselves for transport.
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