Fox News reports that Oklahoma, lifting a moratorium on executions, killed its first inmate in 7 years. And Oklahoma botched it, because of course it did [archive.org]. John Marion Grant, on death row because he murdered a prison cafeteria worker, began vomiting as soon as the sedative midazolam was administered—assuming that's what he was administered. The execution team reportedly had to continually wipe vomit and other fluids from Grant, who entered a series of convulsions—counted at two dozen by a reporter present—and took 21 minutes to die.
Notwithstanding the moratorium, it's Oklahoma's third execution in a row to end in farce.
Oklahoma executions were put on hold following a botched lethal injection in 2014 that left an inmate writhing on the gurney. The wrong drugs were used in a 2015 execution and may have been used in other executions.
One inmate was executed with an unapproved drug and a second inmate was just moments away from being led to the death chamber before prison officials realized the same wrong drug had been delivered for his execution. Death-row inmates in Oklahoma are now injected with an approved three-drug cocktail. The three drugs are: midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. "Extensive validations and redundancies have been implemented since the last execution in order to ensure that the process works as intended," the DOC ensured.
Oklahoma has six more botched executions scheduled through March 2022.
