A 2011 state law prohibits the release of all information about participants in executions. DOC has refused to say whether the EMT present was a paramedic, as required by its protocol.

Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University who has published numerous articles about the death penalty, said Cohen’s report indicates “extraordinary incompetence on the part of the execution team.”

“This type of incompetence by execution teams has existed for decades and it is all the more reason to lift the heavy veil of secrecy concerning executions,” she said.

Megan McCracken, an attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, said problems with Lockett’s IV are “just one factor that caused his prolonged and painful death.”

“The three-drug protocol that was used exacerbated the pain and suffering that Mr. Lockett faced by needlessly paralyzing him and subjecting him to the pain of potassium chloride,” she stated in a release. “Moreover, the state had no plan for contingencies in the event that the execution did not go as planned, as clearly happened here.”