As you surely know, yesterday's double-execution house party at the state penitentiary in McAlester was ruined when we accidentally tortured and killed a vile, worthless, murderer with an experimental lethal-injection cocktail.
According to sources in the T.W. Shannon campaign, the botched execution was the result of Obama, Common Core and the United Nations Agenda 21.
From a Hippie Lee Brewer article on NewsOK.com:
State Corrections Department officials stopped the execution of convicted killer Clayton Derrell Lockett on Tuesday after a botched lethal injection that caused Lockett’s body to violently convulse. He died of a heart attack about 40 minutes later.
The apparent failure of the execution is likely to fuel more debate about the new three-drug cocktail used, and the ability of states to administer lethal injections that meet the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that the punishment be neither cruel nor unusual.
After Lockett began convulsing, officials closed the curtains to the death chamber and Corrections Department Director Robert Patton informed witnesses he was halting the execution. Witnesses were then escorted out of the room, left wondering whether Lockett had actually been put to death...
The execution, which was supposed to start at 6, began at 6:23 p.m. The three-drug cocktail was then administered to Lockett, who had no last words. Lockett was declared unconscious 10 minutes into the process but he mumbled at three separate moments. The first two were inaudible, however the third time he said the word “man.”
Sixteen minutes into the procedure, Lockett grimaced and tensed his body several times over a three-minute period, his head rising from the gurney and his feet kicking several times. A medical professional lifted the sheet covering Lockett’s body to check the vein in his right arm just before officials closed the curtains in the execution chamber and shielded witnesses from what was happening.
He was declared dead at 7:06 p.m. His death was not witnessed by the media.
Patton later announced Lockett had suffered a “blown vein” and had died of a heart attack. He said all three execution drugs had been administered, but “the drugs were not having the effect.”
That's embarrassing. Outside of teen pregnancy, about the only thing Oklahoma has been good at over the years is executing people. Oklahoma screwing up an execution is like Kevin Durant missing a clutch free throw in the playoffs. It never happens. Wait. Yes it does.
To make matters worse, the screw up has brought the never-ending, divisive debate about the death penalty back to front and center. It's a topic that I flip-flop on all the time. I have as much trouble picking a side as a stoner does choosing between Bell and Bueno on a Saturday night, which oddly enough, is its own sort of death penalty.
On one hand, I support the punishment. I'm not a fan of it or anything, but I don't have a problem with the government killing murderers like Timothy McVeigh, Roger Stafford or Clayton Lockett. Those guys committed extra-awful, atrocious crimes and really did deserve to die. If we're 110% double-sure the accused is guilty and the victims families want to pursue the death penalty, go ahead. Let's just make sure the punishment is quick (let's not string along their death for 40-minutes), relatively painless (I'm sure the electric chair and guillotine only hurt for a few seconds) and, most importantly, that the inmate actually murdered someone!
That's the problem with the death penalty and why I sometimes think it should be abolished. You only have to say the name Joyce Gilchrist or spend a few minutes at The Innocence Project to see that we've locked up and executed innocent people in this country. Since the Innocence Project started, 18 people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. Should we really risk murdering an innocent man or two just so we can exact total vengeance on the true psychopaths out there? Wouldn't it be easier to just stick with locking up people for life in a prison? Hell, maybe even force them to listen to Pink Pony? You could argue the death penalty is a kinder sentence.
Of course, asking reasonable questions like that means I'm a soft-on-crime liberal. Take a peek on any local news channel's Facebook wall and you'll see a kind, loving, and very vocal conservative core of Oklahomans from America's "Heartland" who love the death penalty more than Duck Dynasty and cake combined.
Here are a few examples from KFOR's Facebook pages. They're are literally hundreds more just like this:
Yep, people in Oklahoma love the death penalty so much that they're criticizing their death penalty loving Governor for staying an execution while we figure out a humane way to kill someone in less than 40-minutes. This state can be fun sometimes. To right, indeed.
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