Obama troubled by botched Oklahoma execution
Source: AP-Excite
By NEDRA PICKLER
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday called the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate "deeply troubling" and announced that he's going to ask the attorney general to analyze problems surrounding the application of the death penalty in the United States.
In his first public comments on the case of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett, the president, who formerly taught constitutional law, expressed conflicting feelings about the death penalty and said Americans need to "ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions around these issues."
Obama said the death penalty is warranted in some cases, specifically mentioning mass murder and child murder, and said Lockett's crimes were "heinous." But he said the death penalty's application in the United States is problematic, with evidence of racial bias and eventual exoneration of some death row inmates.
"All these, I think, do raise significant questions about how the death penalty is being applied," said Obama said, who was asked about the Oklahoma execution at a White House news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "And this situation in Oklahoma I think just highlights some of the significant problems there."
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FILE - In this April 17, 2014, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at the White House in Washington. Obama says the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate highlights significant problems with the death penalty, and he's asking the attorney general for a review. Obama says he found inmate Clayton Lockett's execution on April 29 "deeply troubling." Lockett convulsed violently during the execution and tried to lift his head after a doctor declared him unconscious. He later died of an apparent heart attack. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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