Records Show Chaos in Botched Execution

New records from Oklahoma’s execution of Clayton Lockett last year reveal a lack of protocol led to a botched execution, the Tulsa World reported Monday. More than 5,000 documents released to the newspaper show a paramedic and doctor hastily tried to find a vein to deliver the lethal injection to stay on schedule for another execution slated to begin in less than two hours. After several failed attempts, the team began an IV in Lockett’s femoral vein, which also failed and began leaking the drugs into his tissue. Lockett was declared dead 43 minutes after he was injected, but spoke after he was supposed to be unconscious. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals called it a “procedural disaster,” while the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case challenging the protocol from other Oklahoma death-row inmates in April.