Oklahoma Lethally Injected Inmate Through Groin After Spending 51 Minutes Finding Vein

[DonViejo]

By Ben Mathis-Lilley

The state of Okahoma has released more details about the botched execution of inmate Clayton Lockett on Tuesday. From the New York Times:

Finding a suitable vein and placing an IV line took 51 minutes. A medical technician searched both of his arms, both of his legs and both of his feet for a vein into which to insert the needle, but “no viable point of entry was located,” reported the corrections chief, Robert Patton, in a letter to Gov. Mary Fallin that her office released. A doctor, the letter said, “went to the groin area.”

(I wondered if "groin area" was a Times euphemism for the urethra, but it doesn't seem like that's the case.)

Once the IV was placed, the process lasted 30 minutes longer than is typical for Oklahoma executions. For 27 of those minutes witnesses were apparently unable to see what was happening in the execution chamber after a physician lowered a set of blinds. Lockett also had to be subdued via Taser before guards could bring him to the chamber.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/05/02/oklahoma_botched_execution_clayton_lockett_lethally_injected_through_groin.html?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. They went for a central placement.

And since it was an artery it is even more painful.

[Egnever]

2. Should have just taken a bat to his head

Things would have gone much smoother and it would have been over faster.

[sharp_stick]

7. Absolutely correct

George Westinghouse said after the first electrocution by electric chair in 1890, "They would have done better with an axe".

Westinghouse was in huge competition with Thomas Edison for the rights to provide a power system. Edison wanted to use DC power and Westinghouse AC.

Because of this Edison really championed the switch to the electric chair because it would have to use the deadlier AC power.

Who would have thought that 123 years later we'd still be killing people and doing it so badly that a bat or an axe would have worked better.

[intaglio]

3. Isn't there a document somewhere that condemns "cruel and unusual punishments"?

Or is it just a guideline?

[eShirl]

5. now that you mention it

it does sound familiar...

[IDemo]

6. That's so 1780's

Come on, get with the times.

[eShirl]

4. If the point is to take someone's life without torturing them

wouldn't a big fatal dose of morphine be more humane than dicking around with all these experimental injections