DEATH ROW

Oklahoma to Resume Lethal Injection Executions: Attorney General

Executions in the state were put on hold five years ago following a series of botched injections and drug mix-ups.

Oklahoma is reportedly planning to resume executing death row inmates, five years after lethal injections were put on hold following a series of botched injections. Gov. Kevin Stitt, Attorney General Mike Hunter, and Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Scott Crow announced in a joint statement that the state would resume executions using a three-drug lethal injection protocol. According to a news release, Oklahoma has obtained a “reliable supply” of drugs that will continue to be used, including midazolam, vecuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Hunter reportedly said that any past problems during executions were the result of human error, not the drugs. The attorney general’s office said that it would not request any execution days until at least five months after the new protocols are in place. “It is important that the state is implementing our death penalty law with a procedure that is humane and swift for those convicted of the most heinous of crimes,” Stitt said. The last scheduled execution in Sept. 2015 was called off after a doctor found that the wrong deadly drug had been injected, and officials later said the same mistake had been made in a Jan. 2015 execution. Another Oklahoma death row inmate died of a heart attack after a botched lethal injection of three drugs.