Clayton Lockett didn't die of heart attack, Oklahoma official autopsy shows

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/28/clayton-lockett-official-autopsy-released

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The official autopsy report into the death of Clayton Lockett, whose botched execution by Oklahoma sparked a nationwide debate on capital punishment, has revealed that state officials riddled him with puncture marks in an attempt to find a vein into which they could inject lethal drugs.

Though the report does not settle the question of how Lockett died, concluding only that the cause of death was “judicial execution by lethal injection”, it does underline the extraordinary lengths to which the execution team went in trying to kill him. It records evidence of 16 needle puncture marks in locations all over his body – from his upper chest and jugular region, to his upper arm, elbow pit, wrist groin and foot.

A more complete understanding of what went wrong in the 29 April execution may be given by the official inquiry into what happened that was ordered by Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin. The state has indicated that it will release the report within the next few days.

Lockett, 38, was sentenced to death for the 2000 kidnapping, rape and murder of Stephanie Neiman. He was injected with a cocktail of three drugs – midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride – but the execution went badly wrong, and it was 43 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

During that time he was witnessed writhing and groaning on the gurney.

An earlier independent autopsy carried out on Lockett’s body arrived at sharper conclusions than the official report. It noted evidence of failed attempts to insert IVs into the prisoner’s veins despite there being “excellent integrity of peripheral and deep veins for the purpose of achieving venous access”.

The finding that Lockett had “excellent integrity” of his veins was in contradiction to the claim made by state officials that the prisoner’s veins had “exploded” during the procedure. It also suggested possible incompetence on the part of the execution team in inserting the IV lines.

The official autopsy released Tuesday, carried out by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at Dallas in Texas, records no signs of any rupture in Lockett’s veins. Nor does it find anything to support the state’s initial claim that he died from a heart attack after the botched execution had been called off – Lockett was found to have minor impairments of his heart but no sign of any profound damage to the organ.

The report also notes “extensive” hemorrhaging in the soft tissue under the skin on the right side of his groin. That suggests a possible cause of the complications behind the botched execution – that an IV might have been improperly inserted in his groin leading to the lethal drugs being injected into his flesh rather than into his vascular system.

Much is riding on the outcome of Oklahoma’s full investigation into Lockett’s death. The state’s next execution, of convicted murderer Charles Warner, was pushed back to 13 November to give time for the inquiry to be finalized, while nationally the fall-out from the Lockett event prompted the Obama administration to launch a nationwide review of death penalty procedures.

On Thursday, Oklahoma also released a facsimile of the log book that was kept by the corrections department leading up to Lockett’s execution. It says that a phlebotomist, or expert in drawing blood, inserted the IV lines in the prisoner, despite the fact that phlebotomists are not licensed in the state to start IV procedures.

The log casts no further light on the blacked-out portion of the execution that lasted 27 out of the 43 minutes, in which a curtain was drawn over the viewing screen preventing witnesses from observing what was unfolding. The log records that at 6.42pm “blinds lowered in chamber” with the next entry, at 7.06pm, being “doctor pronounced offender dead”.

Last week the ACLU, backed by the Guardian and Oklahoma Observer, lodged a lawsuit with a federal court to prevent the state of Oklahoma from restricting press access to any stage of its future executions.