Here's some great news for fans of good old-fashioned state-sanctioned executions.
Yesterday, the AP reported that our pro-life Oklahoma legislature will consider making the gas chamber the state's official backup execution device. It will replace the current alternative, which is forcing death row inmates to eat the Oklahoma state meal in one sitting.
The change in backup execution plans is needed. Not only will it provide a great sponsorship opportunity for Devon Energy, but there's a chance the Supreme Court may rule that our state's preferred method of killing people – botched, lethal-after-45-minutes injections – is unconstitutional because they put inmates through unnecessary pain and torture before they end up in a halfway house in heaven.
Via Politico:
The Oklahoma state legislature will consider two bills this week that would allow the state to use gas chambers in executions when lethal injection chemicals are unavailable.
Using nitrogen gas is “a lot more practical” than lethal injection, Republican Rep. Mike Christian told the Associated Press Tuesday. “You wouldn’t need a medical doctor to do it.”
The bills’ introduction comes less than three weeks after the Supreme Court announced it would consider a challenge to the constitutionality of using midazolam, a drug used by Oklahoma and multiple other states, in executions by lethal injection. The case could make the state’s current death penalty protocol unlawful.
Lawyers arguing on behalf of death row inmates in Oklahoma claim that midazolam, a drug in the same family as Xanax and Valium, does not sufficiently sedate the inmate to prevent cruel and unusual punishment. They further allege that the drug was responsible for the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April 2014, which the state of Oklahoma maintains was the result of a misplaced IV.