Now Oklahoma Ready to Execute 2

Court decides inmates don't need to know drug source
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 24, 2014 12:07 AM CDT
Now Oklahoma Ready to Execute 2
This photo combo of images provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Clayton Lockett, left, and Charles Warner.    (AP Photo/Oklahoma Department of Corrections)

In yet another turnaround for Oklahoma murderers Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, the state Supreme Court has lifted its own stay of execution, clearing the way for the two men to die by lethal injection next week. The court decided that the two inmates are not entitled to know the source of the drugs that will be used to execute them. Gov. Mary Fallin, who decided the high court had exceeded its authority by issuing the stay, issued her own seven-day stay of execution and authorities plan to carry out the executions as soon as it expires next Tuesday if she doesn't issue another, the Tulsa World reports.

The state's attorney general said the court sided with the principle that providers of lethal-injection drugs should not be exposed to the "intimidation used by defense counsel and other anti-death penalty groups," the AP reports. "These death row inmates have not contested their guilt for murdering two innocent victims nor have they contested their sentences of death," he said. "The legal wrangling of the attorneys for Lockett and Warner has served only to delay their punishment for the heinous crimes they committed." An attorney for the two men, however, said it was "unacceptable" that there is no way of knowing whether the executions will be carried out in a humane manner. "It's not even known whether the lethal injection drugs to be used were obtained legally, and nothing is known about their source, purity, or efficacy," he said. (More Oklahoma stories.)

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